However, he had no leisure for guessing riddles that night.

CHAPTER FOUR.

A FRIENDLY CHAT.

If Mark Railsford had been left with no better guide to his new duties and responsibilities than the few hurried utterances given by Dr Ponsford during their tour through the premises that morning, his progress would have been very slow and unsatisfactory. It was part of the doctor's method never to do for anyone, colleague or boy, what they could possibly do for themselves. He believed in piling up difficulties at the beginning of an enterprise, instead of making smooth the start and saving up the hard things for later on. If a master of his got through his first term well, he would be pretty sure to turn out well in future. But meanwhile he got as little help from head-quarters as possible, and had to make all his discoveries, arrange his own methods, reap his own experiences for himself.

Grover had good reason to know the doctor's peculiarity in this respect, and took care to give his friend a few hints about starting work, which otherwise he might never have evolved out of his own consciousness.

Amongst other things he advised that he should, as soon as possible, make the acquaintance of the head boys of his house, and try to come to a good understanding with them as to the work and conduct of the term.

Accordingly four polite notes were that evening handed by the house- messenger to Messrs. Ainger, Barnworth, Stafford, and Felgate, requesting the pleasure of their company at 7.30 in the new master's rooms. The messenger had an easy task, for, oddly enough, he found the four gentlemen in question a.s.sembled in Ainger's study. They were, in fact, discussing their new house-master when his four little missives were placed in their hands.

"What's the joke now, Mercury?" asked Barnworth.

The messenger, who certainly was not nicknamed Mercury on account of the rapidity of his motions or the volatility of his spirits, replied, "I dunno; but I don't see why one letter shouldn't have done for the lot of yer. He's flush with his writing-paper if he isn't with his pounds, shillings and pence!"

"Oh, he's not tipped you, then? Never mind, I'm sure it wasn't your fault!"

Mercury, in private, turned this little sally over in his mind, and came to the conclusion that Mr Barnworth was not yet a finished pupil in manners. Meanwhile the four letters were being opened and perused critically.

"'_Dear Ainger_'--one would think he'd known me all my life!" said Ainger.

"'_I shall be so glad if you will look in at my rooms_,'" read Barnworth. "He evidently wants my opinion on his wall-paper."

"'_At 7.30, for a few minutes' chat_'--nothing about tea and toast, though," said Stafford.

"'_Believe me, yours very truly, M. Railsford_.' So I do believe you, my boy!" said Felgate. "Are you going, you fellows?"

"Must," said Ainger; "it's a mandate, and there's no time to get a doctor's certificate."

"What does he want to chat about, I wonder?" said Stafford.

"The weather, of course!" growled Barnworth; "what else is there?"

Stafford coloured up as usual when anyone laughed at him.

"He wants to get us to take the oath of allegiance, you fellows," said Felgate. "'Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly,'

that's what he means. I think we'd better not go."

Ainger laughed rather spitefully.

"It strikes me he'll find us four fairly tough flies. I mean to go. I want to see what he's like; I'm not at all sure that I like him."

"Poor beggar!" murmured Barnworth. "Now my doubt is whether he likes me. He ought to, oughtn't he, Staff?"

"Why, yes!" replied that amiable youth; "he doesn't look as if he was very particular."

"Oh, thanks, awfully!" replied Barnworth.

The amiable coloured up more than ever.

"I really didn't mean that," he said, horrified at his unconscious joke.

"I mean he doesn't seem strict, or as if he'd be hard to get on with."

"I hope he's not," said Ainger, with a frown. "We had enough of that with Moss."

"Well," said Felgate, "if you are going, I suppose I must come too; only take my advice, and don't promise him too much."

Railsford meanwhile had transacted a good deal of business of a small kind on his own account. He had quelled a small riot in the junior preparation room, and intercepted one or two deserters in the act of quitting the house after hours. He had also gone up to inspect the dormitories, lavatories, and other domestic offices; and on his way down he had made glad the hearts of his coming kinsman and the baronet by a surprise visit in their study. He found them actively unpacking a few home treasures, including a small hamper full of ham, a pistol, some boxing-gloves, and a particularly fiendish-looking bull-dog. The last- named luxury was the baronet's contribution to the common store, and, having been forgotten for some hours in the bustle of arrival, was now removed from his bandbox in a semi-comatose state.

"Hullo!" said Railsford, whose arrival coincided with the unpacking of this natural history curiosity, "what have you got there?"

Oakshott's impulse, on hearing this challenge, had been to huddle his unhappy booty back into the bandbox; but, on second thoughts, he set it down on the mat, and gazing at it attentively, so as not to commit himself to a too hasty opinion, observed submissively that it was a dog.

It is melancholy to have to record failure, in whatever sphere or form; but truth compels us to state that at this particular moment Mark Railsford blundered grievously. Instead of deciding definitely there and then on his own authority whether dogs were or were not _en regle_ in Railsford's house, he halted and hesitated.

"That's against rules, isn't it?" said he.

"Against rules!" said Arthur, crimson in the face--"against rules! Why, Dig and I had one a year ago, only he died, poor beast; he had a mill with a rat, and the rat got on to his nose, and punished him before--"

"Yes," said the master; "but I shall have to see whether it's allowed to keep a dog. Meanwhile you must see he does not make a noise or become a nuisance."

"All serene," replied Dig, who had already almost come to regard the new master as a sort of brother-in-law of his own; "he's a great protection against rats and thieves. My mother gave him to me--didn't she, Smiley?"

Smiley was at that moment lying on his back all of a heap, with his limp legs lifted appealingly in the air, and too much occupied in gasping to vouchsafe any corroboration of his young master's depositions.

Railsford departed, leaving the whole question in an unsettled condition, and not altogether satisfied with himself. He knew, the moment he was outside the door, what he ought to have said; but that was very little consolation to him. Nor was it till he was back in his own room that he remembered he had not taken exception to the pistol. Of course, having looked at it and said nothing, its owner would a.s.sume that he did not disapprove of it. And yet he really could not sit down and write, "Dear Grover,--Please say by bearer if pistols and bull-dogs are allowed? Yours truly, M.R." It looked too foolish. Of course, when he saw them written down on paper he knew they were not allowed; and yet it would be equally foolish now to go back to the study and say he had decided without inquiry that they were against rules.

He was still debating this knotty point when a knock at the door apprised him that his expected guests had arrived. Alas! blunder number two trod hard on the heels of number one! He had no tea or coffee, not even a box of biscuits, to take off the edge of the interview and offer a retreat for his own inevitable embarra.s.sment and the possible shyness of his visitors. The arrangements for that reception were as formal as the invitations had been. Was it much wonder if the conference turned out stiff and awkward? In the first place, as all four entered together, and none of them were labelled, he was quite at a loss to know their names. And it is a chilling beginning to a friendly chat to have to inquire the names of your guests. He shook hands rather nervously all round; and then, with an heroic effort at ease and freedom, said, singling out Felgate for the experiment--

"Let me see, you are Ainger, are you not?"

It was a most unfortunate shot; for nothing could have been less complimentary to the jealous and quick-tempered captain of the house than to be mistaken for his self-conceited and unstable inferior, with whom, he was in the habit of congratulating himself, he had little or nothing in common.

"No, sir," said Felgate, omitting, however, to confess his own name, or point out the lawful owner of the name of Ainger.

The master tried to smile at his own dilemma, and had the presence of mind not to plunge further into the quicksands.

"Which of you is Ainger?" he inquired.

"I am, sir," replied the captain haughtily.

"Thank you," said Mark, and could have eaten the word and his tongue into the bargain the moment he had spoken. This was blunder number three, and the worst yet! For so anxious was he to clear himself of the reproach of abasing himself before his head boys, that his next inquiries were made brusquely and snappishly.

"And Barnworth?"

"I am, sir."