“Then I suppose,” he said, “that I shall have to do nothing about it?”
“That’s it,” said O’Hara.
“It’ll be rather beastly meeting the man after this,” said Trevor, presently. “Do you think he might possibly leave at the end of term?”
“He’s leaving at the end of the week,” said O’Hara. “He was one of the fellows Dexter caught in the vault that evening. You won’t see much more of Rand-Brown.”
“I’ll try and put up with that,” said Trevor.
“And so will I,” replied O’Hara. “And I shouldn’t think Milton would be so very grieved.”
“No,” said Trevor. “I tell you what will make him sick, though, and that is your having milled with Rand-Brown. It’s a job he’d have liked to have taken on himself.”
XXIV. CONCLUSION
Into the story at this point comes the narrative of Charles Mereweather Cook, aged fourteen, a day-boy.
Cook arrived at the school on the tenth of March, at precisely nine o’clock, in a state of excitement.
He said there was a row on in the town.
Cross-examined, he said there was no end of a row on in the town.
During morning school he explained further, whispering his tale into the attentive ear of Knight of the School House, who sat next to him.
What sort of a row, Knight wanted to know.
Cook deposed that he had been riding on his bicycle past the entrance to the Recreation Grounds on his way to school, when his eye was attracted by the movements of a mass of men just inside the gate. They appeared to be fighting. Witness did not stop to watch, much as he would have liked to do so. Why not? Why, because he was late already, and would have had to scorch anyhow, in order to get to school in time. And he had been late the day before, and was afraid that old Appleby (the master of the form) would give him beans if he were late again. Wherefore he had no notion of what the men were fighting about, but he betted that more would be heard about it. Why? Because, from what he saw of it, it seemed a jolly big thing. There must have been quite three hundred men fighting. (Knight, satirically, “Pile it on!”) Well, quite a hundred, anyhow. Fifty a side. And fighting like anything. He betted there would be something about it in the Wrykyn Patriot tomorrow. He shouldn’t wonder if somebody had been killed. What were they scrapping about? How should he know!
Here Mr Appleby, who had been trying for the last five minutes to find out where the whispering noise came from, at length traced it to its source, and forthwith requested Messrs Cook and Knight to do him two hundred lines, adding that, if he heard them talking again, he would put them into the extra lesson. Silence reigned from that moment.
Next day, while the form was wrestling with the moderately exciting account of Caesar’s doings in Gaul, Master Cook produced from his pocket a newspaper cutting. This, having previously planted a forcible blow in his friend’s ribs with an elbow to attract the latter’s attention, he handed to Knight, and in dumb show requested him to peruse the same. Which Knight, feeling no interest whatever in Caesar’s doings in Gaul, and having, in consequence, a good deal of time on his hands, proceeded to do. The cutting was headed “Disgraceful Fracas”, and was written in the elegant style that was always so marked a feature of the Wrykyn Patriot.
“We are sorry to have to report,” it ran, “another of those deplorable ebullitions of local Hooliganism, to which it has before now been our painful duty to refer. Yesterday the Recreation Grounds were made the scene of as brutal an exhibition of savagery as has ever marred the fair fame of this town. Our readers will remember how on a previous occasion, when the fine statue of Sir Eustace Briggs was found covered with tar, we attributed the act to the malevolence of the Radical section of the community. Events have proved that we were right. Yesterday a body of youths, belonging to the rival party, was discovered in the very act of repeating the offence. A thick coating of tar had already been administered, when several members of the rival faction appeared. A free fight of a peculiarly violent nature immediately ensued, with the result that, before the police could interfere, several of the combatants had received severe bruises. Fortunately the police then arrived on the scene, and with great difficulty succeeded in putting a stop to the fracas. Several arrests were made.