The recruiting was going briskly forward when I gathered up my mallet and chisel, picked the chair out of the fireplace and returned to my study. Early in life O'Rane had learned three lessons in collective psychology: a sense of humour is a strong ally; fifty sheep follow when one has butted a gap in a hedge; and the basis of democracy is that all men are entitled to see that their neighbours suffer equally with themselves.
After Third Hour on Monday a batch of forty-three recruits (the Corps was unfashionable in Matheson's) presented themselves at the door of the Armoury graded according to height. I was passing through Cloisters with Tom Dainton, and we heard Sinclair's voice leading the marching song:
"Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em!"
The words aptly described the internal relationships of the Press Gang. The smallest fag marched under the suspicious eye of one slightly larger than himself, the slightly larger was in turn under the surveillance of a fag yet larger. There was an eleventh-hour flicker of mutiny, promptly extinguished.
"I'm hanged if I can see the fun of this," cried Venables, flinging down the pen.
Sinclair, Palmer and Cottrell had already signed and were with difficulty restrained from tearing the would-be deserter limb from limb.
"It's the damnedest silly rot I was ever mixed up with," he grumbled, as he signed his name viciously in the Recruits' Book. "Nobody but a congenital idiot like Raney——Here, Carlisle, come and sign, curse you!"
Two days later, term came to an end. My mother and sister were in Cairo, and as I did not fancy spending Christmas by myself in the wilds of the County Kerry, I had accepted Loring's invitation to stay with him in London. We were almost the last to shake little Matheson's hand and leave the house, for Loring never cared what train he took, so long as he was not hurried. He was now lying contentedly back in his arm-chair, divested of his responsibilities as Head of the house and appreciatively tasting the first savour of the holidays. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and O'Rane had just finished packing the last box of books.
"Is there anything more?" he asked, stretching his back and brushing the dust from his clothes.