Mr. Huntley remembered the tenor of the private conversation the master had held with him, and believed his son would find himself mistaken, and that he, Harry, would be made senior. That it would be Gerald Yorke, Mr. Huntley did not believe. “At any rate, Harry, take heed to what I say,” he resumed. “Be very considerate and courteous towards your friend Channing, if you should obtain it. Do not let me have to blush for my son’s ill feeling.”
There was a tone in Mr. Huntley’s voice which, to Harry’s ears, seemed to intimate that he did not speak without reason. “Papa, it would not be fair for me to go up over Channing,” he impulsively said.
“No. Comparing your merits together, Channing is the better man of the two.”
Harry laughed. “He is not worse, at all events. Why are you saying this, papa?”
“Because I fancy that you are more likely to be successful than Tom Channing. I wish I may be mistaken. I would rather he had it; for, personally, he had done nothing to forfeit it.”
“If Harry could accept the seniorship and displace Tom Channing, I would not care to call him my brother again,” interrupted Ellen Huntley, with a flashing eye.
“It is not that, Ellen; you girls don’t understand things,” retorted Harry. “If Pye displaces Tom from the scholarship, he does not do it to exalt me; he does it because he won’t have him at any price. Were I to turn round like a chivalrous Knight Templar and say I’d not take it, out of regard to my friend Tom, where would be the good? Yorke would get hoisted over me, and I should be laughed at for a duffer. But I’ll do as you like, papa,” he added, turning to Mr. Huntley. “If you wish me not to take the honour, I’ll resign it in favour of Yorke. I never expected it to be mine, so it will be no disappointment; I always thought we should have Channing.”
“Your refusing it would do no good to Channing,” said Mr. Huntley. “And I should have grumbled at you, Harry, had you suffered Yorke to slip over your head. Every one in his own right. All I repeat to you, my boy, is, behave as you ought to Tom Channing. Possibly I may pay the college school a visit this morning.”
Harry opened his eyes to their utmost width.
“You, papa! Whatever for?”