Dick didn’t say anything more just then. Perhaps because he had nothing to say. But he didn’t like this new state of things in his friend. Georgie was being spoiled, and would have to be looked after.
Dick was not the only Templetonian who had made this brilliant discovery. Ponty had dropped a casual eye on him now and then, so had Mansfield; and neither the captain that was, nor the captain that was to be, liked the look of things.
“He’s going the way of all—all the Pledgelings,” said Ponty. “Can’t you stop it, Mansfield?”
“If I were captain of Templeton, I’d try, old man,” replied the other.
“Really, Mansfield, you frighten me when you look so solemn. What can I do?”
“Do? Take him away from where he is, to begin with.”
“On what grounds? Pledge hasn’t done anything you or I could take hold of. And if the kid is going to the dogs, we can’t connect it with Pledge, any more than we can with Winter himself.”
And Ponty yawned, and wished Mansfield would not look as if somebody wanted hanging.
“It’s curious, at any rate,” said Mansfield, “that Pledge’s fag should begin to go to the dogs, while his chum, who fags for Cresswell, and is quite as racketty, should keep all right.”
“Do you call young Richardson all right?” asked Ponty. “I should say he and his friend are in the same boat, and he’s holding the tiller.”