“Look here!” persisted Edwards, noticing this, “tell me honestly; if you had been situated like me, would you have told of him?”
“Not to save my life!” blurted out Crawley; “I mean,” he added hastily, “I fear that I should not have had the moral courage.”
The week passed, and Weston School once more broke up. What story Saurin told to Sir Richard to induce him to take his name off the boards quietly I do not know, but it had the desired effect; and when the boys reassembled for the summer term Saurin’s place was known no longer amongst them. The scandal about him soon began to leak out, and the story ran that but for Crawley’s extreme generosity towards him he would have now been in penal servitude at Portland.
Stubbs, too, went away that Easter vacation, taking Topper with him, and the pair went out to China together, Stubbs having lucrative employment in that country. Crawley returned, but that was his last term, and soon afterwards he succeeded in getting into Woolwich.
Chapter Eighteen.
Epilogue.
A young man stood on the platform of the South-Western Railway pointing out his luggage to a porter. There was a good deal of it, and every package had Serapis painted upon it. Serapis, however, was not the name of that young man; that was inscribed on another part of the trunk, and ran, “Vincent Crawley, RA.” Serapis indicated the ship into whose hold all these things were to go. They had other marks, for some were to go to the bottom—absit omen!—the bottom of the hold, I mean, not of the sea, and were to remain there till the end of the voyage. But one trunk was to lie atop, for it contained light clothing to be worn on entering the Red Sea. Minute were the printed directions about these matters which had been sent him directly he got his route. It is the fashion to cry out against red tape, but red tape is a first-rate thing if it only ties up the bundles properly. There is nothing like order, method—routine in short. By following it too closely on exceptional occasions absurd blunders may now and then be committed; but think of the utter confusion that would prevail every hour for the want of it.
With a cold March wind blowing how should a young fellow who had never been out of his own country know that in a few days it would be so hot that his present clothes would be unbearable? Or how should he understand the way to meet the difficulty if he did know it? I am all for rules and regulations, and down with the grumblers.