(g) Their tutor smells a rat.
(h) He takes me into his confidence.
(i) Days pass but I remain inactive.
(j) He puts the affair into the hands of Beverley, the head of the house.
(k) Triumph of Miss Rachel.
Miss Rachel who is an old friend of ours is slight and frail, say 5 ft. 3, her biceps cannot be formidable and I question whether she could kick the beam however favourably it was placed for her. She is such an admirer of Tintinnabulum that he occasionally writhes, in his fuller knowledge of the subject.
Having led a quiet and uneventful life (so far as I know), Miss Rachel suddenly shoots into the light through her acquaintance with the Beverleys of Winch Park, which is, as it were, nothing; but the great Beverley, Beverley the thunderous, who is head of m’ tutor’s house, is a scion of that family; and now you see what a swell Miss Rachel has become. When Neil (as he then was) was entered for that great school she wrote to Beverley—fancy knowing someone who can write to Beverley—telling him (to Neil’s indignation) what a darling her young friend was and hoping Beverley would look after him and make him his dear little fag. Months elapsed before a reply came, but when it did come it really referred to Tintinnabulum and contained these pregnant words: “As to the person in whom you are interested, I look after him a good deal, and the more I see of him the more I lick him.”
Miss Rachel showed me the letter with exultation. So kind of him, she said, though she was a little distressed that a strapping fellow like Beverley should spell so badly.
More recently I had a letter from Tintinnabulum, which I showed to her as probably denoting the final transaction in the affair of the letter.
“W. W. and I,” it announced very cheerily, “saw Beverley yesterday in his room and he gave each of us six of the best.”