I shook hands. After all, Plummer, I thought, meant to be kind, though he took an odd way of showing it. I was thankful when the ceremony was over, and the Dux and I found ourselves with our luggage in the hall waiting for our cabs.
All at once the old school we were leaving seemed to become dearer than I had thought.
The hall where we stood was full of the memory of jolly comings and goings. The field out there seemed to echo with the whizzing of balls and the war-whoops of combatants. The very schoolroom we had just left, from which even now came the hum of work in which we were no more to join, had its pleasant associations of battles fought, friends gained, difficulties mastered. How I would have liked to run down to get a last look at the pond, or upstairs for a farewell glance round the dormitory! But now we were out of it—Dux and I. The place belonged to us no more. We were outsiders, visitors whose time was up, and whose cabs were due at the front door at any moment.
And what was it all for?
“If it hadn’t been for that beast Hector,” said the Dux rather dismally, “we shouldn’t have been out here, Tommy.”
He rarely called me by my Christian name. It was always a sign he was out of sorts.
“I do wish you’d missed him,” said I.
“Missed him! What on earth do you mean?”
“Not made such a good shot—that’s what I mean.”
“Shot! Young Brown, are you crazy?”