It was plain to see he was fond of Tempest; a weakness which reconciled me to him from the first. Tempest, however, seemed, if anything, to prefer the third member of the party present, who was in every way a contrast to his genial host.
Wales struck one as a far more imposing person than Pridgin, but not quite as attractive. He was dressed in what seemed to me the top of the fashion, and had the appearance of a youth who made a point of having everything of the best. He had the reputation, as I discovered afterwards, of possessing the most expensive bats and racquets, the best-bound books, the best-fitting clothes, of any one in Low Heath. It was also rumoured that he spent more than any boy in the town shops, and gave the most extravagant entertainments in his study. Fellows were a little shy of him for this very reason. He forced the pace in the matter of money, and there were only a few fellows who could stand it.
Tempest was not one of these, and yet he seemed very thick with Wales. It was certainly not for the sake of his money, for Tempest was one of those fellows who never care for a fellow for the same reason that any one else would. He had begun by being amused with Wales’s dandyism and extravagance, and had ended in encouraging him in them.
“I expect,” said Wales, as the three heroes sat discussing their tea, “we’re in for a pretty lively term, if it’s true what I hear, that Redwood is to be captain.”
“Why shouldn’t he be?” asked Pridgin; “he’s a hot man in the fields, as well as in classics.”
“My dear fellow, he’s a town-boy.”
“What of that?”
“What of that? First of all, the town-boys are most of them snobs. Sons of hard-up people who come to live at Low Heath so as to get them into the school cheap. Then they can’t possibly keep up with what goes on in school when they are away every evening.”
“There’s more in the second objection than the first,” said Tempest. “I don’t see why a fellow should be out of it because he’s poor. If so, I can cut my lucky here. But it does seem a swindle to stick a town-boy over all of us.”
“I don’t see it,” said Pridgin. “He’s one of us. The only difference is, he goes home to sleep instead of tucking up in a cubicle here. No, what seems to me the cool thing is this talk of a town-boys’ club, that brags it’s going to lick the school clubs into fits. I hope it’s not true, for if it is, we shall have to sit up, and I loathe sitting up.”