I felt I had done him a real bad turn by my clumsiness, but had not the wit to avoid making bad worse.
“Yes, sir, I told Marple—”
“I purposely refrained from mentioning names, Jones iv.; why can you not do so too?”
“I told him to keep it dark, and got him to give it to me. I—I knew Tempest hadn’t enough money to pay it—and—and—”
An exclamation of anger from Tempest cut me short, and I was sent ignominiously back to my place.
“Tempest,” said the head master very sternly, “send me in a list of all you owe before you go to bed to-night, and understand that, unless all is paid by Friday when we break up, you will not be allowed to return to Low Heath after the holidays. You must cease in any case to retain the headship of the house, even for the few days of the term that remain. You, I understand. Crofter, come next in form order; you will act as head boy in the meantime.”
In the midst of my anguish I could see the look of meek resignation on Crofter’s face, and that of quiet satisfaction on Mr Jarman’s. At Tempest I dared not look, or at my fellow-Philosophers.
What had I done? What was to become of me? How could I get out of it? These were the three questions which set my poor brain spinning as I wandered off alone to the remotest corner of the quadrangle, and as, later on, I lay miserably awake in my bed.
I had done my friend about as much harm as I possibly could. I may not have meant it. But who cares what a fellow means, so long as he acts like a cad? As to what was to become of me, I had had a taste of that already. The faggery door had been locked against me, and a missive shoved under the bottom had apprised me of my fate in that quarter.
“To Beast Sarah.