The White Feather

As Stanning was the only one of his rivals of whom he had any real fear, Sheen might have replied with justice that, if that was the case, the more he swotted the better. But he said nothing. He looked at the stove, and dog's-eared the Thucydides.

"What a worm you are, always staying in!" said Stanning.

"I caught a cold watching the match yesterday."

"You're as flabby as—" Stanning looked round for a simile, "as a dough-nut. Why don't you take some exercise?"

"I'm going to play fives, I think. I do need some exercise."

"Fives? Why don't you play footer?"

"I haven't time. I want to work."

"What rot. I'm not doing a stroke."

Stanning seemed to derive a spiritual pride from this admission.

"Tell you what, then," said Stanning, "I'll play you tomorrow after school."

Sheen looked a shade more uncomfortable, but he made an effort, and declined the invitation.

"I shall probably be playing Drummond," he said.

"Oh, all right," said Stanning. "I don't care. Play whom you like."

There was a pause.

"As a matter of fact," resumed Stanning, "what I came here for was to tell you about last night. I got out, and went to Mitchell's. Why didn't you come? Didn't you get my note? I sent a kid with it."

Mitchell was a young gentleman of rich but honest parents, who had left the school at Christmas. He was in his father's office, and lived in his father's house on the outskirts of the town. From time to time his father went up to London on matters connected with business, leaving him alone in the house. On these occasions Mitchell the younger would write to Stanning, with whom when at school he had been on friendly terms; and Stanning, breaking out of his house after everybody had gone to bed, would make his way to the Mitchell residence, and spend a pleasant hour or so there. Mitchell senior owned Turkish cigarettes and a billiard table. Stanning appreciated both. There was also a piano, and Stanning had brought Sheen with him one night to play it. The getting-out and the subsequent getting-in had nearly whitened Sheen's hair, and it was only by a series of miracles that he had escaped detection. Once, he felt, was more than enough; and when a fag from Appleby's had brought him Stanning's note, containing an invitation to a second jaunt of the kind, he had refused to be lured into the business again.

"Yes, I got the note," he said.

"Then why didn't you come? Mitchell was asking where you were."

"It's so beastly risky."

"Risky! Rot."

"We should get sacked if we were caught."

"Well, don't get caught, then."

Sheen registered an internal vow that he would not.

"He wanted us to go again on Monday. Will you come?"

"I—don't think I will, Stanning," said Sheen. "It isn't worth it."

"You mean you funk it. That's what's the matter with you."

"Yes, I do," admitted Sheen.

As a rule—in stories—the person who owns that he is afraid gets unlimited applause and adulation, and feels a glow of conscious merit. But with Sheen it was otherwise. The admission made him if possible, more uncomfortable than he had been before.

"Mitchell will be sick," said Stanning.

Sheen said nothing.

Stanning changed the subject.

"Well, at anyrate," he said, "give us some tea. You seem to have been victualling for a siege."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Sheen, turning a deeper shade of red and experiencing a redoubled attack of the warm shooting, "but the fact is, I'm waiting for Drummond."

Stanning got up, and expressed his candid opinion of Drummond in a few words.

He said more. He described Sheen, too in unflattering terms.

"Look here," he said, "you may think it jolly fine to drop me just because you've got to know Drummond a bit, but you'll be sick enough that you've done it before you've finished."

"It isn't that—" began Sheen.

"I don't care what it is. You slink about trying to avoid me all day, and you won't do a thing I ask you to do."

"But you see—"

"Oh, shut up," said Stanning.

III SHEEN RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE

While Sheen had been interviewing Stanning, in study twelve, farther down the passage, Linton and his friend Dunstable, who was in Day's house, were discussing ways and means. Like Stanning, Dunstable had demanded tea, and had been informed that there was none for him.

"Well, you are a bright specimen, aren't you?" said Dunstable, seating himself on the table which should have been groaning under the weight of cake and biscuits. "I should like to know where you expect to go to. You lure me in here, and then have the cheek to tell me you haven't got anything to eat. What have you done with it all?"

"There was half a cake—"

"Bring it on."

"Young Menzies bagged it after the match yesterday. His brother came down with the Oxford A team, and he had to give him tea in his study. Then there were some biscuits—"

"What's the matter with biscuits? They're all right. Bring them on. Biscuits forward. Show biscuits."

"Menzies took them as well."

Dunstable eyed him sorrowfully.