But I shan't shoot you. You're not _worth_ it--not _worth_ it. I shan't even cane you, sir. You're too _old_--too _old_."

Penny looked at him, as much as to say he thought his point of view was very sensible.

"But ee, bless me, my man, take off that complacent expression, or I feel I may certainly smack your face."

Poor Penny, for once in a way, was rather at a loss, which was all Salome desired, so he turned to me.

"Ray--I think _that_ was your detestable name--I shall now cane you.

Get _over_, my man--get _over_."

When the ceremony was completed, Salome talked to us so nicely, although periodically asking us to bless him, that I told myself I would never break bounds again; thereby making one of those good resolutions which pave, we are told, another Beaten Track.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FREEDHAM REVELATIONS

--1

The next half-holiday I was walking towards the tuck-shop and gloomily deciding that Doe's wilful estrangement from me was fast being frozen into tacit enmity, when I felt an arm tucked most affectionately into mine. It was done so quietly and quickly that I nearly leapt a yard at the shock. The arm belonged to Doe.

"Ray, you old a.s.s," he began.

Doe, now sixteen, was not so very different from the small fawning creature of three years before. Although the perfect curve of the cheek-line had given place to a perceptible depression beneath the cheek-bone; although the usual marks of a boy's adolescence--the slight pallor, the quick blush of diffidence, the slimness of limb--were all very noticeable in Doe, there was yet much of the original Baby about his appearance. It could be marked in his soft, indeterminate mouth, whose flower-like lips seemed always parted; in his inquiring eyes and unkempt hair; and, at the present moment, in an artless excitement that I had not seen for many a day.

I tried to drag my arm away, but he held it too tight, and proceeded to make the remarkable statement:

"You old a.s.s! Surely you've been sulking long enough."

"Well, I like that," replied I, with an empty laugh. "You drop me, sulk like a pig, and then say it's the other way round--"

"Rot!" he interrupted. "Didn't you deliberately cut me out with Radley?"

"I don't know what you mean," I said, although the hint that I was Radley's favourite always gave me a flush of pleasure.

"And haven't you been hanging on to Penny, just to make me jealous?"

"Never entered my head," I replied promptly, and with truth. "I leave that sort of thing to schoolgirls like you. But it evidently did make you jealous."

"_Yes_, it did," he admitted with an engaging smile. This softened me; and my affection for him began at once to throb into activity.

"_Yes_, it did; and now that you've said you're sorry, I feel frightfully lively. Let's go and smash a window or something."

His spirits were infectious, and he dragged me off to the study which his intellectual eminence had recently secured for him. When we arrived there, he tossed me a bag of sweets, which had clearly been bought as a means to sugar the reconciliation, and, dropping into his armchair, stretched his legs in front of him, and said:

"Let's talk as we used to."

I was relieved from the necessity of finding some opening remark by the bursting into the room of "Moles" White.

If you look up the Latin word "Moles" in the dictionary, you will find that it means "a huge, shapeless ma.s.s"; and all of us had been very quick to see that this was an excellent description of our junior house-prefect, White. Moles White was as enormous and ugly in his dimensions as he was genial and simple in face. You saw at a glance that he possessed all the traditional kindliness and generosity of the giant. As he crashed into Doe's study, he was swinging some books on the end of a strap.

"Found you, Doe," said he. "Look here, Bramhall's got to make the best house-team it can, which means you must give up slacking at cricket. You'll play at the nets this evening."

"Heavens! Ray," Doe murmured in mock dismay, as he stared out of eyes that sparkled with impudence at White's huge frame, "what on earth is this coming in?"

White smiled meaningly.

"Don't be cheeky now, Doe," he suggested. "No lip, please."

Doe's reply was a laugh, and the question addressed to me:

"I say, Ray, do you think it's an Iguanodon?"

"Well," said White, striding forward and beginning to swing his books ominously, "if you're asking for trouble, you shall have it."

Doe ducked down and raised his right hand to protect his head.

"I never said it, White," he affirmed, giggling. "Really, I didn't.

You thought I did. I never called you an Iguanodon--I've too much respect for you."

"Yes, you did. Take your hand away. I'm determined to swing these books on to your head."

"Ray," shouted Doe between his giggles, "take him away. Don't bully, Moles! You great beast! Ray, he's bullying me."

White paused. Bullying, even in fun, was a horrible idea. The books fell limply to his side.

"Be sensible, if you can, Doe. You've got to play this evening."

The change in White's voice prompted Doe to raise his head and look up from under his arm at his attacker.

"Great Scott, Ray," he blurted out. "If it's not an Iguanodon, it's a prehistoric animal of some sort."

"My hat!" exclaimed White. "You young devil! Put that hand down while I smite you over the head with these books." And he made as though to execute his threat. Doe accordingly retired still further down into his chair, and placed his elbow to ward off the swinging books.

"I didn't say it, White, you liar! Shut up, will you? You might hurt me seriously. Go away. I hate you! Oh, hang it!"--(this was when the books struck him on the elbow),--"it hurts, Moles. Leave off, while I rub my elbow."

The gentle giant responded to this reasonable request; the books dropped; and Doe, looking reproachfully at his executioner, set about ma.s.saging his elbow.

"Ray," he said, when the operation was complete, "is there any known means of removing this nightmare?"

Immediately his uplifted arm was seized in White's huge paw. Doe's eyes were sparkling, his cheeks red, and his hair tumbled. His right arm being now held, he laughed more loudly and nervously and raised his left.

"By Jove, White," he cried, "if you rouse my ire, I'll get up and lick you. Let go of my hand--it's not yours. Oh, shut up, you great swine! Hang it, Ray"--(this with a shriek, half of laughter, half of antic.i.p.ation)--"he's got my left hand as well--O, White, I'm sorry."

White held both his victim's wrists in one hand. Too honourable to take advantage of this, he swung his books at a distance and said: