“I was alluding to the vile and calculated indecency of that black doll.”
Mr. Brownell had passed Tar Baby going down to battle, all round and ripe, before Turkey had begun to use it as Bishop Odo’s holy-water sprinkler.
“It is possible you didn’t——”
“I never noticed anything,” said Prout. “If there had been, I should have been the first——”
Here Little Hartopp sniggered, which did not cool the air.
“Peradventure,” King began with due intake of the breath. “Peradventure even I might have taken cognizance of the matter both for my own House’s sake and for my colleague’s.... No! Folly I concede. Utter childishness and complete absence of discipline in all quarters, as the natural corollary to dabbling in so-called transatlantic humour, I frankly admit. But that there was anything esoterically obscene in the outbreak I absolutely deny.”
“They’ve been fighting for weeks over those things,” said Mr. Prout. “’Silly, of course, but I don’t see how it can be dangerous.”
“Quite true. Any House-master of experience knows that, Brownell,” the Reverend John put in reprovingly.
“Given a normal basis of tradition and conduct—certainly,” Mr. Brownell answered. “But with such amazing traditions as exist here, no man with any experience of the Animal Boy can draw your deceptive inferences. That’s all I mean.”
Once again, and not for the first time, but with greater heat he testified what smoking led to—what, indeed, he was morally certain existed in full blast under their noses....