Boycotted.

by Talbot Baines Reed.

CHAPTER ONE.

Sub-Chapter I.

THE SCHOOL CUTS ME.

I hardly know yet what it was all about, and at the time I had not an idea. I don't think I was more of a fool than most fellows of my age at Draven's, and I rather hope I wasn't an out-and-out cad.

But when it all happened, I had my doubts on both points, and could explain the affair in no other way than by supposing I must be like the lunatic in the asylum, who, when asked how he came to be there, said, "I said the world was mad, the world said I was mad; the world was bigger than I was, so it shut me up here!"

It had been a dismal enough term, as it was, quite apart from my troubles. That affair of Browne had upset us all, and taken the spirit out of Draven's. We missed him at every turn. What was the good of getting up the football fifteen when our only "place-kick" was gone?

Where was the fun in the "Sat.u.r.day nights" when our only comic singer, our only reciter, our only orator wasn't there? Who cared about giving study suppers or any other sociable entertainment, when there was no Browne to invite?

Browne had left us suddenly. One day he had been the life and soul of Draven's, next morning he had been summoned to Draven's study, and that same evening we saw him drive off to the station in a cab with his portmanteau on the top.

Very few of the fellows knew why he had been expelled. I scarcely knew myself, though I was his greatest chum. On the morning of the day he left, he met me on his way back from Draven's study.

"I'm expelled, Smither," he said, with a dismal face.

"Go on," replied I, taking his arm and scrutinising his face to see where the joke was hidden. But it was no joke.

"I am," said he hopelessly: "I am to go this evening. It's my own fault. I've been a cad. I was led into it. It's bad enough; but I'm not such a blackleg as Draven makes out--"

And here for the first time in my life I saw Browne look like breaking down.

He wasn't going to let me see it, and hurried away before I could find anything to say.

If he hadn't told me himself, I should have called any one who told me Browne had been a cad--well, I'd better not say what I should have called him. I knew my chum had been a rollicking sort of fellow, who found it hard to say No to anybody who asked anything of him; but that he was a blackleg I, for one, would not believe, for all the Dravens in the world.

Hardly knowing what I did, I walked up to the master's study door and knocked.

"Come in." I could tell by the voice that came through the door I should do no good.

I went in. Mr Draven was pacing up and down the room, and stopped short in front of me as I entered. "Well?"

I wished I was on the other side of the door; but I wasn't, and must say something, however desperate.

"Please, sir, Browne--"

"Browne leaves here to-day," said Mr Draven coldly; "what do you want?"

"Please, sir, I hope you will--"

I forgot where I was and what I was saying. My mind wandered aimlessly, and I ended my sentence I don't know how.

Draven saw I was confused, and wasn't unkind.

"You have been a friend of Browne, I know," he said, "and you are sorry.

So am I, terribly sorry," and his voice quite quavered as he spoke.

There was a pause, and I made a frantic effort to recall my scattered thoughts.

"Won't you let him off this time, sir?" I gasped.

"That, Smither, is out of the question," said the head master, so steadily and incisively that I gave it up, and left the room without another word. The fellows were trooping down the pa.s.sage to breakfast, little guessing the secret of my miserable looks, or the reason why Browne was not in his usual place.

But the secret came out, and the school staggered under the shock. Mr Draven announced our comrade's departure kindly enough in the afternoon, adding that he had confessed the offence for which he was expelled, and was penitent. Two hours later we saw his cab drive off, and as we watched it disappear it all seemed to us like a hideous dream.

We said little about it to one another. We did not even care to inquire particularly into the offence for which he had suffered. But we moped and missed him at every turn, and wished the miserable term were ending instead of beginning.

This, however, is a long digression. I sat down to write the story of my own trouble, not Browne's. But the reader will understand now why I said that, as it was, apart from my own misfortunes, the term, which had still a month more to run when my story begins, had been a dismal one.

I was wandering about the playground one frosty November morning, beginning to hope that if a frost should come we might after all get a little fun at Draven's before the holidays came, when Odger junior, whistling shrilly, crossed my path.

Odger junior was not exactly my f.a.g, for we had no f.a.gs at Draven's, and if we had had, I had not yet reached that pitch of dignity at which one fellow has the right to demand the services of another. Still Odger junior had, for a consideration, done a good many odd jobs for me, and I had got into the way of regarding him as a quasi-f.a.g.

"Hullo, youngster!" said I, as we met, "there's going to be a stunning frost. Can't you smell it in the air? I wish you'd cut down to Bangle's and get me a pair of straps for my skates."

To my astonishment, not wholly unmixed with amus.e.m.e.nt, Odger junior regarded me majestically for a moment, and then, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. the oracular phrase, "Oh, ah!" walked off, his four-foot-one drawn to its full height, his hands behind his back, and his mouth still drawn up for whistling, but apparently too overcome with dignity to emit the music which an observer would naturally be led to expect.

I was not on the whole a short-tempered youth. My laziness saved me from that. It certainly did occur to me on this bright frosty morning that it would be exhilarating both for young Odger and me if I were to go after him and kick him. But what was the use? He would enjoy it as much as I should. There would be plenty of ways in which to pay him out less fatiguing than an undignified chase round the playground. So I let him go, and grinned to think how much nicer monkeys are when they behave like monkeys, and not like men.

I had a lot of work to do in my study that morning before afternoon school, and so had very little time to think of Odger junior, or any one else. As it was, I was only just in time to take my usual place in the Greek cla.s.s when Mr Draven sailed into the room and the lesson began.

I had been so flurried by my hasty arrival that I did not at first observe that the desk on my right, usually occupied by a boy called Potter, was vacant.

"Where's Potter?" I asked of my neighbour on the left. "Is he--why, there he is at Browne's old desk!" I added, catching sight of the deserter across the room.

Browne's desk had always been left empty since its late owner went.

None of us had cared to appropriate it, and the sight of it day after day had fed our sorrow over his loss. It seemed to me, therefore, an act almost of disloyalty on Potter's part towards the memory of my old chum to install himself coolly at his desk without saying a word to anybody.

"What's he gone there for?" I inquired of Sadgrove on my left. "He's got no--"

"Don't talk to me!" said Sadgrove.

Sadgrove was in a temper, and I wasn't surprised. So was I, lazy as I was. We had all stuck to Browne through the term, and it was a little too much now to find a fellow like Potter, who professed to be Browne's friend too, stepping in this cold-blooded way into his place. Sadgrove was put up to construe, so there was no opportunity for further conversation, had we desired it.

I wasn't surprised that Potter avoided me in the playground after school. He guessed, I supposed, what I had to say to him, and had the decency to be ashamed of himself. However, I was determined to have it out, and that evening, after preparation, went up to his study. He was there, and looked guilty enough when he saw me.

"Look here, Potter," I began, trying to be friendly in spite of all. I got no further, for Potter, without a word, walked out of the door, leaving me standing alone in the middle of his study.

I had seen the working of a guilty conscience once or twice before at Draven's, but never knew it to work in quite so strange a manner as it did with Potter that evening.