Felgate was comfortably stretched on two chairs, reading a novel. But as he held the book upside down, Ainger concluded that he could not be very deeply engrossed in its contents.
“You’re working, I hear?” said the captain.
“Is that all you’ve come to tell me?” replied Felgate.
“No, only most fellows when they’re reading—even if it’s novels, read the right way up. It’s bad for the eyes to do it upside down.”
Felgate looked a little disconcerted and shut up his book.
“You’ve missed the last two weeks at cricket,” said the captain. “We have managed to get on without you, though, and one of the things I looked in to say now was that if you choose to stay away always you are welcome. Don’t think it will put us out.”
This was unexpected. Felgate was prepared to hear a peremptory order to go to the field, and had laid his plans for resisting it.
“I’ve just been seeing one or two other louts down below who hadn’t turned up. I’m glad to hear you advised them to go when I sent Wake to fetch them. It’s a pity they didn’t take your advice, for I’ve had to thrash Munger. And if you happen to know where I can find the coward who put him and the rest up to breaking the rule, and didn’t dare to show face himself, I’ll thrash him too.”
Felgate was completely disconcerted by this speech, and gnashed his teeth to find himself made a fool of after all.
“Why on earth can’t you get out of my study and go down to your cricket? I don’t want you here,” he snarled.