He departed, leaving the two worthies in a state of bewildered jubilation.
“What a splendid lark!” exclaimed Arthur. “We shall be able to do just what we like all the term. There! we’re in luck. Mark thinks Ainger’s looking after us; and Ainger will think Mark’s looking after us; and, Diggy, my boy, nobody will look after us except Smiley—eh, old dog?”
Smiley, who had wonderfully recovered since an hour ago, here made a playful run at the speaker’s heels under the belief that the football had recommenced; and the heart-rending yelps which Railsford heard in the room below a few moments later were occasioned by an endeavour to detach the playful pet’s teeth from the trouser-ends of his owner’s friend.
The Master of the Shell retired to bed that night doubtful about his boys, and doubtful about himself. He was excellent at shutting stable doors after the abstraction of the horses, and could see a blunder clearly after it had been committed. Still, hope sprang eternal in the breast of Mark Railsford. He would return to the charge to-morrow, and the next day, and the next. Meanwhile he would go to sleep.
The discussion in the captain’s room had not been unanimous.
“Well,” said Felgate, when Ainger returned, “how do you like him?”
“I don’t fancy I shall get on with him.”
“Poor beggar!” drawled Barnworth. “I thought he might have been a good deal worse, myself.”
“So did I,” said Stafford. “He was quite shy.”
“No wonder, considering who his visitors were. We were all shy, for the matter of that.”