THE MORAL REFORMERS.
There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in the Head, they had had a good run for their money.
The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters’ studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if they choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent some cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically a gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and he never carried over into official life the confidences of idle hours. Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an avenger of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, seldom forgot his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired and beloved by Number Five.
Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing like an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it appeared to them, and specially of that last interview with the Head—in the matter of usury.
“One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good,” he said, twinkling and shaking all over; “and, as you say, you were entirely in the right.”
“Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he’d let us talk,” said Stalky; “but he didn’t. The Head’s a downy bird.”
“He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough for it.”
“But he’s awfully fair. He doesn’t lick a chap in the morning an’ preach at him in the afternoon,” said Beetle.
“He can’t; he ain’t in Orders, thank goodness,” said McTurk. Number Five held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were ever ready to meet their pastor in argument.