“Rather,” says Wrangham. “He is one of the elect. It’s worth fifty pounds a year to him, so it would be a wonder if he wasn’t.”
“Yes, my boy,” says Pledge, “if you want to get on at Templeton, take holy orders. Believe everybody’s as good as he tries to make out, and you’ll have no trouble at all. When a fellow cracks up your batting, don’t on any account suspect he wants to borrow five shillings of you, and if he tells you it’s naughty to look about in chapel, don’t imagine for a moment he’s got half-a-dozen cribs in his study. Bah! They’re all alike. Thank goodness you’re not a hypocrite yet, young ’un, whatever you may become. Now you can cut. Good-night.”
And Heathcote obeys, and lies wide awake an hour, wondering how he can ever have remained a simpleton as long as he has.
Chapter Eleven.
How Ponty takes his hand out of his pocket.
The Grandcourt match was the only match of the season which Templeton played away from home. All its other matches, the house match, and even the match against the town, were played in the Fields, in the presence of the whole school. But once every other year, Templeton went forth to war in drags and omnibuses against its hereditary rival, and mighty was the excitement with which the expedition and its equipment were regarded by every boy who had the glory of his school at heart.
Seventy boys, and seventy only, were permitted to form the invading army, the selection of whom was a matter of intrigue and emulation for weeks beforehand. But for a few broad rules, which eliminated at least half the school, the task might have been still more difficult than it was. For instance, all juniors, to the eternal wrath and indignation of the Den, were excluded. Further, all boys who during the term had suffered punishment, either monitorial or magisterial, all boys who had not shown up at the proper number of practices in the Fields, all boys who had lost a given number of “call-overs” forfeited the chance of getting their names on the “Grandcourt List,” as it was called.
Of the reduced company that remained, each member of the eleven had the right of nominating six, the remaining four being chosen by the patriarchal method of lot.