“All right,” I said sulkily, “I’ll play.”
“Good chap!”
“But I don’t think Donelly ought to have been whopped,” I repeated inanely; “he’s—he’s too big.”
Ruding approached till he looked right down on me in my old ‘froust,’ as we called arm-chairs. “One of these days,” he said slowly, “you’ll be head of the house yourself. You’ll have to keep up the prestige of the sixth form. If you let great louts like Donelly cheek little weak six-formers with impunity,” (I remember how impressed I was by the word) “you’ll let the whole show down. My old governor runs a district in Bengal, about as big as Wales, entirely on prestige. He’s often talked to me about it. I hate whopping anybody, but I’d much rather whop a lout like Donelly than I would a little new chap. He’s a swine anyway for turning the house down because his back is sore!”
“It isn’t that,” I said, “it—it wasn’t just.”
“If it was unjust,” said Ruding, with what seems to me now extraordinary patience, “then the whole system’s wrong, and that’s a pretty big question, young Bartlet. Anyway, it’s not for me to decide. I’ve got to administer what is. Shake hands, and do your damndest to-morrow, won’t you?”
I put out my hand with a show of reluctance, though secretly won over.
We got an awful hiding, but I can still hear Ruding’s voice yelling: “Well played, Bartlet! Well pla-a-ayed!”
I have only one other school recollection of Miles Ruding which lets any real light in on him. On the day he left for good I happened to travel up to town in the same carriage. He sat looking through the window back at the old hill, and I distinctly saw a tear run down his cheek. He must have been conscious that I had remarked the phenomenon, for he said suddenly:
“Damn! I’ve got a grit in my eye,” and began to pull the eyelid down in a manner which did not deceive me in the least.