“Don’t say that. I’m sure no offence was meant.”
It was a delicious sensation to feel myself master of the situation like this. I could have bullied Marple if I had liked, but I resolved not to be too hard on him.
“I’m sure I’m much obliged,” said he, “for all your trouble. Have you seen these pretty little pencil-sharpers? They are quite new. I shall be pleased if you will accept one, young gentleman.”
A pencil-sharpener was the very thing I wanted. All the term I had been wrestling with a blunt penknife, which no sooner uncovered the lead at the end of a pencil than it broke it off. So in a weak moment I accepted the gift, and forfeited my advantage.
From Marple’s I proceeded to the confectioner’s, where a score of nearly a pound stood against Tempest. Here, again, I experienced the sweets of being treated with distinguished consideration, and being asked to partake of a strawberry ice (how Rammage, by the way, continued to have strawberry ices in the middle of December I have never yet clearly understood) while the receipt was being made out.
Mr Winget, the hatter, rather disappointed me by offering me nothing more than his sincere thanks for the settlement of his little bill. He might at least, I thought, have offered me a mourning hatband or a new school ribbon. His bill, however, was only five shillings, so probably the profit did not permit of any gratuitous allowance in recognition of my distinguished services.
I was consoled, however, by Mr Ringstead, the games man, who presented me with a net-bag for holding tennis balls, and urged me, whenever I wanted any little thing in the way of repairs to bats, or fresh spikes to my running shoes, to let him know.
It was all very pleasant, and I grieve to say that the shady side of all this petty bribery and corruption never once occurred to my simple mind.
I returned to school covered with self-satisfaction, and virtuously clutching in my hand half-a-crown, the final change out of the “fiver.” This in due course I put in an envelope, together with the batch of receipts, and laid on Crofter’s table after morning school, with the laconic message under the flap, “All right, T.J. iv.”
I was far too knowing to let out my secret to the Philosophers, whose agitation and indignation at Tempest’s probable expulsion knew no bounds and somewhat amused me.