When order was restored, Dick was discovered, red in the face, mounted on a form, propped up on either side by his faithful allies.
“I can tell him that,” he cried, “and all of you, too. We thought he knew about another row of ours—about Tom White’s boat, you know. It was us let her go; at least I did, and Georgie was there, too, and Coote’s been in it since he came up. Tom White robbed us coming back from Grandcourt, and we were awfully wild, and were cads enough to slip his boat on the beach. There’s been a regular row, and we expected to be transported. We backed Tom White up all we could, and tried to get him off. I told the magistrate it was us did it, and he said I’d put him in a jolly fix. Pledge was always talking to us about the police, and the county gaol, and that sort of thing, and we made sure he’d found out all about it, and was going to do us over it. We never guessed he was running his head against that pencil business, or we could easily have put him right. We’re awfully sorry about the boat, you know. My governor came down and squared most of the fellows, and it’s all right now, and Tom’s got let off. Pledge has got a spite against all our ‘Firm,’ because we’re not going to let Georgie be made a cad of by him, and we told him so; didn’t we, you chaps?”
“Yes, we did,” shouted the “chaps.”
“Yes, he thought,” continued Dick, warming up, “he’d make Georgie go and fag for him again, by threatening him about this row; but we backed Georgie up, and wouldn’t let him; and then he promised to show us up at the ‘Sociables,’ and so he has.”
Dick’s oration was too much for the feelings of his audience. They laughed and cheered at every sentence; and when finally he subsided between his two supporters, quite short of breath, and wondering at the length of his own speech, they forgot the Captain’s rebuke, and finished their howl against Pledge to the bitter end.
“Does Pledge want to ask any more questions?” asked Mansfield.
Pledge laughed bitterly.
“No, thank you; I’m not quite clever enough for them.”
“Perhaps you are right,” said the Captain, drily. “And if you have nothing more to say, perhaps you would like to go.”
Pledge hesitated a moment, amid the howls which followed the Captain’s words. Then he coolly rose, and ascended the platform. His face was flushed, and his eyes uneasy; but otherwise impudence befriended him, and he stood there to all appearances neither humiliated nor dismayed.