“Softly, Huntley! I don’t know that I can allow this wholesale changing of places and functions.”
“Oh yes, you can, sir,” said Harry, with a bright look. “If I committed any unworthy act, I should be degraded from the seniorship, and another appointed. The same thing can be done now, without the degradation.”
“He deserves a recompense,” said Mr. Huntley to the master. “But this will be no recompense; it is Channing’s due. He will make you a better senior than Harry, Mr. Pye. And now,” added Mr. Huntley, improving upon the whole, “there will be no necessity to separate the seniorship from the Oxford exhibition.”
It was rather a free and easy mode of dealing with the master’s privileges, and Mr. Pye relaxed into a smile. In good truth, his sense of justice had been inwardly burning since the communication made by Lady Augusta. Tom, putting aside a little outburst or two of passion, had behaved admirably throughout the whole season of opprobrium; there was no denying it. And Mr. Pye felt that he had done so.
“Will you do your duty as senior, Channing?” unnecessarily asked the master.
“I will try, sir.”
“Take your place, then.”
Mr. Huntley was the first to shake his hand when he was in it. “I told you to bear up bravely, my boy! I told you better days might be in store. Continue to do your duty in single-hearted honesty, under God, as I truly believe you are ever seeking to do it, and you may well leave things in His hands. God bless you, Tom!”
Tom was a little overcome. But Mr. Bywater made a divertisement. He seized the roll, with which it was no business of his to meddle, and carried it to Mr. Pye. “The names have to be altered, sir.” In return for which Mr. Pye sternly motioned him to his seat, and Bywater favoured the school with a few winks as he lazily obeyed.
“Who could possibly have suspected Roland Yorke!” exclaimed the master, talking in an undertone with Mr. Huntley.