"The odds are that he won't. He and Fenn had a row at the beginning of term, and never speak to one another if they can help it. It's ten to one that he will prefer taking your yarn to going and asking Fenn if it's true or not. Then he's bound to let you off."

Wren admitted that the scheme was sound.

At the conclusion of prayers, therefore, he went up again to Kennedy's study, with a more hopeful air than he had worn on his previous visit.

"Come in," said Kennedy, reaching for the swagger-stick which he was accustomed to use at these ceremonies.

"Please, Kennedy," said Wren, glibly. "I did get leave to go down town this afternoon."

"What!"

Wren repeated the a.s.sertion.

"Who gave you leave?"

"Fenn."

The thing did not seem to be working properly. When he said the word "Fenn", Wren expected to see Kennedy retire baffled, conscious that there was nothing more to be said or done. Instead of this, the remark appeared to infuriate him.

"It's just like your beastly cheek," he said, glaring at the red-headed delinquent, "to ask Fenn for leave instead of me. You know perfectly well that only the head of the house can give leave to go down town. I don't know how often you and the rest of the junior dayroom have played this game, but it's going to stop now. You'd better remember another time when you want to go to Rose's that I've got to be consulted first."

With which he proceeded to ensure to the best of his ability that the memory of Master Wren should not again prove treacherous in this respect.

"How did it work?" asked Walton, when Wren returned.

"It didn't," said Wren, briefly.

Walton expressed an opinion that Kennedy was a cad; which, however sound in itself, did little to improve the condition of Wren.

Having disposed of Wren, Kennedy sat down seriously to consider this new development of a difficult situation. Hitherto he had imagined Fenn to be merely a sort of pa.s.sive resister who confined himself to the Achilles-in-his-tent business, and was only a nuisance because he refused to back him up. To find him actually aiding and abetting the house in its opposition to its head was something of a shock. And yet, if he had given Wren leave to go down town, he had probably done the same kind office by others. It irritated Kennedy more than the most overt act of enmity would have done. It was not good form. It was. .h.i.tting below the belt. There was, of course, the chance that Wren's story had not been true. But he did not build much on that. He did not yet know his Wren well, and believed that such an audacious lie would be beyond the daring of a f.a.g. But it would be worth while to make inquiries. He went down the pa.s.sage to Fenn's study. Fenn, however, had gone to bed, so he resolved to approach him on the subject next day. There was no hurry.

He went to his dormitory, feeling very bitter towards Fenn, and rehearsing home truths with which to confound him on the morrow.

XX

JIMMY THE PEACEMAKER

In these hustling times it is not always easy to get ten minutes'

conversation with an acquaintance in private. There was drill in the dinner hour next day for the corps, to which Kennedy had to go directly after lunch. It did not end till afternoon school began. When afternoon school was over, he had to turn out and practise scrummaging with the first fifteen, in view of an important school match which was coming off on the following Sat.u.r.day. Kennedy had not yet received his cap, but he was playing regularly for the first fifteen, and was generally looked upon as a certainty for one of the last places in the team. Fenn, being a three-quarter, had not to partic.i.p.ate in this practice. While the forwards were scrummaging on the second fifteen ground, the outsides ran and pa.s.sed on the first fifteen ground over at the other end of the field. Fenn's training for the day finished earlier than Kennedy's, the captain of the Eckleton fifteen, who led the scrum, not being satisfied with the way in which the forwards wheeled. He kept them for a quarter of an hour after the outsides had done their day's work, and when Kennedy got back to the house and went to Fenn's study, the latter was not there. He had evidently changed and gone out again, for his football clothes were lying in a heap in a corner of the room. Going back to his own study, he met Spencer.

"Have you seen Fenn?" he asked.

"No," said the f.a.g. "He hasn't come in."

"He's come in all right, but he's gone out again. Go and ask Taylor if he knows where he is."

Taylor was Fenn's f.a.g.

Spencer went to the junior dayroom, and returned with the information that Taylor did not know.

"Oh, all right, then--it doesn't matter," said Kennedy, and went into his study to change.

He had completed this operation, and was thinking of putting his kettle on for tea, when there was a knock at the door.

It was Baker, Jimmy Silver's f.a.g.

"Oh, Kennedy," he said, "Silver says, if you aren't doing anything special, will you go over to his study to tea?"

"Why, is there anything on?"

It struck him as curious that Jimmy should take the trouble to send his f.a.g over to Kay's with a formal invitation. As a rule the head of Blackburn's kept open house. His friends were given to understand that they could drop in whenever they liked. Kennedy looked in for tea three times a week on an average.

"I don't think so," said Baker.

"Who else is going to be there?"

Jimmy Silver sometimes took it into his head to entertain weird beings from other houses whose brothers or cousins he had met in the holidays. On such occasions he liked to have some trusty friend by him to help the conversation along. It struck Kennedy that this might be one of those occasions. If so, he would send back a polite but firm refusal of the invitation. Last time he had gone to help Jimmy entertain a guest of this kind, conversation had come to a dead standstill a quarter of an hour after his arrival, the guest refusing to do anything except eat prodigiously, and reply "Yes" or "No", as the question might demand, when spoken to. Also he had declined to stir from his seat till a quarter to seven. Kennedy was not going to be let in for another orgy of that nature if he knew it.

"Who's with Silver?" he asked.

"Only Fenn," said Baker.

Kennedy pondered for a moment.

"All right," he said, at last, "tell him I'll be round in a few minutes."

He sat thinking the thing over after Baker had gone back to Blackburn's with the message. He saw Silver's game, of course. Jimmy had made no secret for some time of his disgust at the coolness between Kennedy and Fenn. Not knowing all the circ.u.mstances, he considered it absolute folly. If only he could get the two together over a quiet pot of tea, he imagined that it would not be a difficult task to act effectively as a peacemaker.

Kennedy was sorry for Jimmy. He appreciated his feelings in the matter. He would not have liked it himself if his two best friends had been at daggers drawn. Still, he could not bring himself to treat Fenn as if nothing had happened, simply to oblige Silver. There had been a time when he might have done it, but now that Fenn had started a deliberate campaign against him by giving Wren--and probably, thought Kennedy, half the other f.a.gs in the house--leave down town when he ought to have sent them on to him, things had gone too far. However, he could do no harm by going over to Jimmy's to tea, even if Fenn was there. He had not looked to interview Fenn before an audience, but if that audience consisted only of Jimmy, it would not matter so much.

His advent surprised Fenn. The astute James, fancying that if he mentioned that he was expecting Kennedy to tea, Fenn would make a bolt for it, had said nothing about it.

When Kennedy arrived there was one of those awkward pauses which are so difficult to fill up in a satisfactory manner.

"Now you're up, Fenn," said Jimmy, as the latter rose, evidently with the intention of leaving the study, "you might as well reach down that toasting-fork and make some toast."

"I'm afraid I must be off now, Jimmy," said Fenn.

"No you aren't," said Silver. "You bustle about and make yourself useful, and don't talk rot. You'll find your cup on that shelf over there, Kennedy. It'll want a wipe round. Better use the table-cloth."

There was silence in the study until tea was ready. Then Jimmy Silver spoke.

"Long time since we three had tea together," he said, addressing the remark to the teapot.

"Kennedy's a busy man," said Fenn, suavely. "He's got a house to look after."