“Well, I suppose—What did he say to you?”
Firby-Smith related the painful details.
Burgess started to laugh, but turned the laugh into a cough.
“Yes,” he said meditatively. “Rather thick. Still, I mean—A prefects’ meeting. Rather like crushing a thingummy with a what-d’you-call-it. Besides, he’s a decent kid.”
“He’s frightfully conceited.”
“Oh, well—Well, anyhow, look here, I’ll think it over, and let you know to-morrow. It’s not the sort of thing to rush through without thinking about it.”
And the matter was left temporarily at that.
[ CHAPTER XV
MIKE CREATES A VACANCY]
Burgess walked off the ground feeling that fate was not using him well.
Here was he, a well-meaning youth who wanted to be on good terms with all the world, being jockeyed into slaughtering a kid whose batting he admired and whom personally he liked. And the worst of it was that he sympathised with Mike. He knew what it felt like to be run out just when one had got set, and he knew exactly how maddening the Gazeka’s manner would be on such an occasion. On the other hand, officially he was bound to support the head of Wain’s. Prefects must stand together or chaos will come.