Finally, when all was ready, Percy held a full-dress parade of his forces, and looked each of them up and down as minutely and critically as an officer of the Guards inspecting his company. He objected to Cash wearing white gloves, as he had none himself, and he nearly cashiered Cottle for having a coloured handkerchief, because he himself had a brand-new white one. At length, however, all these little details were arranged, and as the school clock began to chime the hour the order to march was given, and the company proceeded at the double to Mr Stratton’s house.
Mr Stratton was more or less of a favourite with both sides at Fellsgarth. He had a small house, in which were representatives of both factions, but most of them of the quieter sort, who, being obliged to live together under one roof, did not see so much to quarrel about out of doors. Mr Stratton, too, took the juniors’ divisions of each school, and so kept fairly well in touch with both. Add to this, that he was a good all round athlete, that he had a serene and cheerful temper, and, what is of scarcely less importance, a charming young wife, and you have several very good reasons why he was one of the most popular masters at Fellsgarth. The juniors, on the whole, appreciated him. When he was down on them they forgave him on account of his youth, and when he complained that he could not get them to understand his precepts, they asked one another whose fault was that. Occasionally he condoned all his offences by an act of hospitality, and for once in a way betrayed that he recognised the merits of a select few of his pupils by asking them to tea.
This was evidently the ease now, and as our five young Moderns trotted across the Green, they wished their enemies in Wakefield’s could only have looked out and witnessed their triumph.
Little they dreamed that at that moment Wally, Ashby, D’Arcy, and Fisher minor, resplendent in shirts and collars fresh from the wash, with their eight hands encased in white kid and their eight feet in patent leather, were standing about in Mr Stratton’s drawing-room, wondering who on earth it was whose non-arrival was preventing the ringing of the tea-bell.
When presently Percy and his party were ushered in, and discovered who were their fellow-guests, it did some credit to their breeding that they remembered to go up and shake hands with Mr and Mrs Stratton, and did not immediately fly at the enemy’s throat. The enemy, however, were equally taken aback, and were fully entitled to half the credit for the self-control with which the discovery was received.
“There’s no need to introduce you to one another, I’m sure,” said Mr Stratton. “By the way, Wheatfield—you I mean,” pointing to Percy, “I must apologise for calling you minor. It was very kind of you to put me right.”
Wally glared up at this, and would have liked to put the matter right there and then, but Mrs Stratton said—
“It isn’t fair to number twins at all, is it?”
“Unless,” suggested D’Arcy, blushing to find himself talking, “unless you reckon them half each.”
This only mended matters to the extent of raising a laugh at the expense of the twins, who felt mutually uncomfortable.