Chapter 3

WESTBY'S AMUSEMENTS

The water was warm, but Irving swallowed a good deal of it and also was conscious of the fact that he had on a perfectly good suit of clothes. So he came to the surface, choking and annoyed; and when he recovered his faculties, he observed first of all Westby's grinning face.

"You can swim all right, can't you, Mr. Upton?" said Westby. "I thought for a moment we might have to dive for you."

Irving clutched at the stern of the capsized canoe and said, rather curtly, "I'm not dressed to enjoy swimming."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Scarborough. "But I never thought they were going to turn that way; I don't know what Carrie thought he was doing--"

"I'd have shown you some strategy if you hadn't blundered into us," declared Carroll.

"Blundered into you! There was no need for Wes to give us such a poke, anyhow."

Westby replied merely with an irritating chuckle--irritating at least to Irving, who felt that he should be showing more contrition.

Collingwood and Morrill came alongside, both laughing, jeering at Westby and offering polite expressions of solicitude to the master. They told him to lay hold of the tail of their canoe, and then they towed him ashore as rapidly as possible. When he drew himself up, dripping, on the bank, Baldersnaith, Dennison, and Smythe were all on the broad grin, and from the water floated the sound of Westby's merriment.

Irving stood for a moment, letting himself drip, quite undecided as to what he should do. He had never been ducked before, with all his clothes on; the clammy, weighted sensation was most unpleasant, the thought of his damaged and perhaps ruined suit was galling, the indignity of his appearance was particularly hard to bear. He felt that Baldersnaith and the others were trying to be as polite and considerate as possible, and yet they could not refrain from exhibiting their amusement, their delight.

Scarborough, who had swum ahead of the others, waded ashore and looked him over. "I tell you what you'd better do, Mr. Upton," he said. "You'd better take your clothes off, wring them out, and spread them out to dry. They'll dry in this sun and wind. And while they're doing that, you can come in swimming with us."

Irving hesitated a moment; instinct told him that the advice was sensible, yet he shrank from accepting it; he felt that for a master to do what Scarborough suggested would be undignified, and might somehow compromise his position. "I think I'd better run home and rub myself down and put on some dry things," he replied.

"Well," said Scarborough, "just as you say. Sorry I got you into this mess."

"Oh, it's all right," said Irving.

He walked away, with the water trickling uncomfortably down him inside his clothes and swashing juicily in his shoes. He liked Scarborough for the way he had acted, but he felt less kindly towards Westby. He was by no means sure that Westby had not deliberately soused him and then pretended it was an accident. He remembered Westby's mirthful laugh just when the thing was happening; and certainly if it had really been an accident Westby had shown very little concern. He had been indecently amused; he was so still; his clear joyous laugh was ringing after Irving even now, and Irving felt angrily that he was at this moment a ridiculous figure. To be running home drenched!--probably it would have been better if he had done what Scarborough had suggested, less undignified, more manly really. But he couldn't turn back now.

He was cold and his teeth had begun to chatter, so he started to run. He hoped that when he came out of the woods he might be fortunate enough to elude observation on the way to the Upper School, but in this he was disappointed. As he jogged by the Study building, with his clothes jouncing and slapping heavily upon his shoulders, out came the rector and met him face to face.

"Upset canoeing?" asked the rector with a smile.

"Yes," Irving answered; he stood for a moment awkwardly.

"Well, it will happen sometimes," said the rector. "Don't catch cold." And he passed on.

There was some consolation for Irving in this matter-of-fact view. In the rector's eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the incident. But when a moment later he passed a group of Fourth Formers and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity had suffered very much. He felt that within a short time his misfortune would be the talk of the school.

At supper it was as he expected it would be. Westby set about airing the story for the benefit of the table, appealing now and then to Irving himself for confirmation of the passages which were least gratifying to Irving's vanity. "You _did_ look so woe-begone when you stood up on shore, Mr. Upton," was the genial statement which Irving especially resented. To have Westby tell the boys the first day how he had called the new master a new kid and the second day how he had ducked him was a little too much; it seemed to Irving that Westby was slyly amusing himself by undermining his authority. But the boy's manner was pleasantly ingratiating always; Irving felt baffled. Carroll did not help him much towards an interpretation; Carroll sat by self-contained, quietly intelligent, amused. Irving liked both the boys, and yet as the days passed, he seemed to grow more and more uneasy and anxious in their society.

In the classroom he was holding his own; he was a good mathematical scholar, he prepared the lessons thoroughly, and he found it generally easy to keep order by assigning problems to be worked out in class. The weather continued good, so that during play time the fellows were out of doors instead of loafing round in dormitory. They all had their own little affairs to organize; athletic clubs and literary societies held their first meetings; there was a process of general shaking down; and in the interest and industry occasioned by all this, there was not much opportunity or disposition to make trouble.

But the first Sunday was a bad day. In a boys' school bad weather is apt to be accompanied by bad behavior; on this Sunday it poured. The boys, having put on their best clothes, were obliged, when they went out to chapel, to wear rubbers and to carry umbrellas--an imposition against which they rebelled. After chapel, there was an hour before dinner, and in that hour most of the Sixth Formers sought their rooms--or sought one another's rooms; it seemed to Irving, who was trying to read and who had a headache, that there was a needless amount of rushing up and down the corridors and of slamming of doors. By and by the tumult became uproarious, shouts of laughter and the sound of heavy bodies being flung against walls reached his ears; he emerged then and saw the confusion at the end of the corridor. Allison was suspended two or three feet above the floor, by a rope knotted under his arms; it was the rope that was used for raising trunks up to the loft above. In lowering it from the loft some one had trespassed on forbidden ground. Westby, Collingwood, Dennison, Scarborough, and half a dozen others were gathered, enjoying Allison's ludicrous struggles. His plight was not painful, only absurd; and Irving himself could not at first keep back a smile. But he came forward and said,--

"Oh, look here, fellows, whoever is responsible for this will have to climb up and release Allison."

Westby turned with his engaging smile.

"Yes, but, Mr. Upton, who do you suppose is responsible? I don't see how we can fix the responsibility, do you?"

"I will undertake to fix it," said Irving. "Westby, suppose you climb that ladder and let Allison down."

"I don't think you're approaching this matter in quite a judicial spirit, Mr. Upton," said Westby. "Of course no man wants to be arbitrary; he wants to be just. It really seems to me, Mr. Upton, that no action should be taken until the matter has been more thoroughly sifted."

The other boys, with the exception of Allison, were chuckling at this glib persuasiveness. Westby stood there, in a calmly respectful, even deferential attitude, as if animated only by a desire to serve the truth.

"We will have no argument about it, Westby," said Irving. "Please climb the ladder at once and release Allison."

"I beg of you, Mr. Upton," said Westby in a tone of distress, "don't, please don't, confuse argument with impartial inquiry; nothing is more distasteful to me than argument. I merely ask for investigation; I court it in your own interest as well as mine."

Irving grew rigid. His head was throbbing painfully; the continued snickering all round him and Westby's increasing confidence and fluency grated on his nerves. He drew out his watch.

"I will give you one minute in which to climb that ladder," he said.

"Mr. Upton, you wish to be a just man," pleaded Westby. "Even though you have the great weight of authority--and years"--Westby choked a laugh--"behind you, don't do an unjust and arbitrary thing. Allison himself wouldn't have you--would you, Allison?"

The victim grinned uncomfortably.

"Mr. Upton," urged Westby, "you wouldn't have me soil these hands?" He displayed his laudably clean, pink fingers. "Of course, if I go up there I shall get my hands all dirty--and equally of course if I had been up there, they would be all dirty now. Surely you believe in the value of circumstantial evidence; therefore, before we fix the responsibility, let us search for the dirty pair of hands."

"Time is up," said Irving, closing his watch.

"But what is time when justice trembles in the balance?" argued Westby. "When the innocent is in danger of being punished for the guilty, when--"

"Westby, please climb that ladder at once."

"So young and so inexorable!" murmured Westby, setting his foot upon the ladder.

Irving's face was red; the tittering of the audience was making him angry. He held his eyes on Westby, who made a slow, grunting progress up three rungs and then stopped.

"Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, sir!" Westby's voice was ingratiating. "Mayn't Allison sing for us, sir?"

Allison grinned again foolishly and sent a sprawling foot out towards his persecutor; the others laughed.

"Keep on climbing," said Irving.

Westby resumed his toilsome way, and as he moved he kept murmuring remarks to Allison, to the others, to Irving himself, half audible, rapid, in an aggrieved tone.

"Don't see why you want to be conspicuous this way, Allison.--Won't sing--amuse anybody--ornamental, I suppose--good timekeeper though--almost hear you tick. Mr. Upton--setting watch by you now--awfully severe kind of man--"

So mumbling, with the responsive titter still continuing below and Irving standing there stern and red, Westby disappeared into the loft. There was a moment's silence, then a sudden clicking of a ratchet wheel, and Allison began to rise rapidly towards the ceiling.

"A-ay!" cried Allison in amazement.

The boys burst out in delighted laughter.

"Westby! Westby! Stop that!" Irving's voice was shrill with anger.

Allison became stationary once more, and Westby displayed an innocent, surprised face at the loft opening.

"If there is any more nonsense in letting Allison down, I shall really have to report you." Irving's voice rose tremulously to a high key; he was trying hard to control it.

Westby gazed down with surprise. "Why, I guess I must have turned the crank the wrong way, don't you suppose I did, Mr. Upton?--Don't worry, Allison, old man; I'll rescue you, never fear. I'll try to lower you gently, so that you won't get hurt; you'll call out if you find you're coming down too fast, won't you?"

He withdrew his head, and presently the ratchet wheel clicked and slowly, very slowly, Allison began to descend. When his feet were a couple of inches from the floor, the descent stopped.

"All right now?" called Westby from above.

"No!" bawled Allison.

"Ve-ry gently then, ve-ry gently," replied Westby; and Allison, reaching for the floor with his toes, had at last the satisfaction of feeling it. He wriggled out of the noose and smoothed out his rumpled coat.

"Saved!" exclaimed Westby, peering down from the opening, and then he added sorrowfully, "Saved, and no word of gratitude to his rescuer!"

"Now, boys, don't stand round here any longer; we've had enough nonsense; go to your rooms," said Irving.

"Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, Mr. Upton, sir!" clamored Westby, and the boys lingered.

Irving looked up in exasperation. "What is it now?"

"May I come down, please, sir?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, sir."

Carefully Westby descended the ladder, mumbling all the time sentences of which the lingerers caught fragmentary scraps: "Horrible experience that of Allison's--dreadful situation to have been in--so fortunate that I was at hand--the man who dares--reckless courage, ready resource--home again!" He dropped to the floor, and raising his hand to his forehead, saluted Irving.

"Come, move on, all you fellows," said Irving; the others were still hanging about and laughing; "move on, move on! Carroll, you and Westby take that ladder down and put it back where you got it."

He stayed to see that the order was carried out; then he returned to his room. He felt that though he had conquered in this instance, he had adopted the wrong tone, and that he must offer something else than peevishness and irritation to ward off Westby's humor; already it gave indications of becoming too audacious. Yet on the whole Irving was pleased because he had at least asserted himself--and had rather enjoyed doing it. And an hour later it seemed to him that he had lost all that he had gained.

Roast beef was the unvarying dish at Sunday dinner; a large and fragrant sirloin was set before the head of each table to be carved. Irving took up the carving knife and fork with some misgivings. Hitherto he had had nothing more difficult to deal with than steaks or chops or croquettes or stews; and carving was an art that he had never learned; confronted by the necessity, he was amazed to find that he had so little idea of how to proceed. The first three slices came off readily enough, though they were somewhat ragged, and Irving was aware that Westby was surveying his operations with a critical interest. The knife seemed to grow more dull, the meat more wobbly, more tough, the bone got more and more in the way; the maid who was passing the vegetables was waiting, all the boys except the three who had been helped first were waiting, coldly critical, anxiously apprehensive; silence at this table had begun to reign.

Irving felt himself blushing and muttered, "This knife's awfully dull," as he sawed away. At last he hacked off an unsightly slab and passed it to Westby, whose turn it was and who wrinkled his nose at it in disfavor.

"Please have this knife sharpened," Irving said to the maid. She put down the potatoes and the corn, and departed with the instrument to the kitchen.

Irving glanced at the other tables; everybody seemed to have been served, everybody was eating; Scarborough, who was in charge of the next table, had entirely demolished his roast.

"I'm sorry to keep you fellows waiting," Irving said, "but that's the dullest knife I ever handled."

He addressed the remark to the totally unprovided side of his table; he turned his head just in time to catch Westby's humorous mouth and droll droop of an eyelid. The other boys smiled, and Irving's cheeks grew more hot.

"You'll excuse me, Mr. Upton, if I don't wait, won't you?" said Westby. "Don't get impatient, fellows."

The maid returned with the carving knife; Westby paused in his eating to observe. Irving made another unsuccessful effort; the meat quivered and shook and slid under his attack, and the knife slipped and clashed down upon the platter.

"Perhaps if you would stand up to it, sir, you would do better," suggested Westby, in an insidious voice. "Nobody else does, but if it would be easier--"

"Thank you, but the suggestion is unnecessary," Irving retorted. He added to the other boys, while he struggled, "It's the meat, I guess, not the knife, after all--"

"Why, I shouldn't say it was the meat," interposed Westby. "The meat's quite tender."

Irving glanced at him in silent fury, clamped his lips together, and went on sawing. He finally was able to hand to Carroll a plate on which reposed a mussy-looking heap of beef. Carroll wrinkled his nose over it as Westby had done.

"If I might venture to suggest, sir," said Westby politely, "you could send it out and have it carved in the kitchen."

Irving surrendered; he looked up and said to the maid,--

"Please take this out and have it carved outside."

He felt that he could almost cry from the humiliation, but instead he tried to assume cheerfulness and dignity.

"I'm sorry," he said, "to have to keep you fellows waiting; we'll try to arrange things so that it won't happen again."

The boys accepted the apology in gloomy silence. At Scarborough's table their plight was exciting comment; Irving was aware of the curious glances which had been occasioned by the withdrawal of the roast. It seemed to him that he was publicly disgraced; there was a peculiar ignominy in sitting at the head of a table and being unable to perform the simplest duty of host. Worst of all, in the encounter with Westby he had lost ground.

The meat was brought on again, sliced in a manner which could not conceal the unskillfulness of the original attack.

"Stone cold!" exclaimed Blake, the first boy to test it.

Irving's temper flew up. "Don't be childish," he said. "And don't make any more comments about this matter. It's of no importance--and cold roast beef is just as good for you as hot."

"If not a great deal better," added Westby with an urbanity that set every one snickering.

After dinner Irving was again on duty for two hours in the dormitory, until the time for afternoon chapel. During part of this period the boys were expected to be in their rooms, preparing the Bible lesson which had to be recited after chapel to the rector. Irving made the rounds and saw that each boy was in his proper quarters, then went to his own room. For an hour he enjoyed quiet. Then the bell rang announcing that the study period was at an end. Instantly there was a commotion in the corridors--legitimate enough; but soon it centred in the north wing and grew more and more clamorous, more and more mirthful.

With a sigh Irving went forth to quell it. He determined that whatever happened he would not this time lose his temper; he would try to be persuasive and yet firm.

The noise was in Allison's room; the unfortunate Allison was again being persecuted. Loud whoops of laughter and the sound of vigorous scuffling, of tumbling chairs and pounding feet, came to Irving's ears. The door to Allison's room was wide open; Irving stood and looked upon a pile of bodies heaped on the bed, with struggling arms and legs; even in that moment the foot of the iron bedstead collapsed, and the pile rolled off upon the floor. There were Morrill and Carroll and Westby and Dennison and at the bottom Allison--all looking very much rumpled, very red.

"Oh, come, fellows!" said Irving in what he intended to make an appealing voice. "Less noise, less noise--or I shall really have to report you--I shall really!"

But he did not speak with any confidence; his manner was hesitating, almost deprecating. The boys grinned at him and then sauntered, rather indifferently, out of the room.

There was no more disorder that day. But some hours later, when Irving came up to the dormitory before supper, he heard laughter in the west wing, where Collingwood and Westby and Scarborough had their rooms. Then he heard Westby's voice, raised in an effeminate, pleading tone: "Less noise, fellows, less noise--or I shall have to report you--I shall really!"

There was more laughter at the mimicry, and Irving heard Collingwood ask,

"Where did you get that, Wes?"

"Oh, from Kiddy--this afternoon."

"Poor Kiddy! He seemed to be having an awful time at noon over that roast beef."

"He's such a dodo--he's more fun than a goat. I can put him up in the air whenever I want to," boasted Westby. "He's the easiest to get rattled I ever saw. I'm going to play horse with him in class to-morrow."

"How?" asked Collingwood; and Irving basely pricked up his ears.

"Oh, you'll see."

Irving closed the door of his room quietly. "We'll see, will we?" he muttered, pacing back and forth. "Yes, I guess some one will see."