Dick did not often feel ashamed of himself. He had a knack of keeping his head above water, even in reverses, which usually stood him in good stead. But after that mournful scratch match with Cazenove and Wade, he certainly did feel ashamed.
And, be it said to the credit of his honesty, that he blamed the right offender. Ponty had been rough on him, but it wasn’t Ponty’s fault. Cazenove and Wade had knocked him and his chum into a cocked hat, but it wasn’t Cazenove’s or Wade’s fault. Heathcote had mulled his game dreadfully, and done nothing to save the match, but it wasn’t Heathcote’s fault. Basil the son of Richard was the guilty man, and Basil the son of Richard kicked himself and called himself a fool.
Not publicly, though. In the Den, despite the blushes his tennis had caused, he did his best to keep up his swagger and restore confidence by a few acts of special audacity; and the Den was forgiving on the whole. They did feel sore for a day, and showed it; but gradually they came back to their allegiance, and made excuses for their hero of their own accord.
If truth must be told, Dick was far more concerned as to the possible effect of his public humiliation on his election at “the Sociables,” which was now only a day off.
Braider told him, with rather a long face, that his chances had been rather shaken by the affair, and that there was again some talk of pushing Culver against him. This alarming news drove all immediate projects of virtue out of Dick’s head. Not that membership of the club was his one ideal of bliss; but, being a candidate, he could not bear the idea of being defeated, particularly by a young ruffian like Culver. So he indulged in all sorts of extravagances on the last day of his probation, and led Heathcote on to the very verge of a further punishment in order to recover some of the ground he had lost with the “select” twenty.
After school he could settle to nothing till he knew his fate. He dragged the unsuspecting Heathcote up and down the great Quadrangle under pretext of discussing Tom White’s boat, but really in order to keep his eye on the door behind which the select “Sociables” sat in congress.
Heathcote saw there was a secret somewhere, and, feeling himself out of it, departed somewhat moodily to Pledge’s study. Dick, however, continued his walk, heedless if every friend on earth deserted him, so long as Culver should not be preferred before him behind that door.
He was getting tired of this solitary promenade, and beginning to wonder whether the “Select Sociables” had fallen asleep in the act of voting for him, when a ball pitched suddenly on to the pavement between his feet.
He couldn’t tell where it came from—probably from some window above, for no one just then was about in the Quadrangle.
He stooped down to pick it up and pitch it back into the first open window, when, greatly to his surprise, he saw his name written across it, and discovered that the ball was not a tennis ball at all, but a round paper box, which came in two as he held it.