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Monk's first impulse was to refer him back to a previous interview, when matters had been the other way about, that small affair of the pound on the second morning of the term. Then there flashed across his mind certain reasons against this move. At present Farnie's attitude towards him was unpleasantly independent.
That's what my grandfather, Farnie's pater, you know, always used to say when he got at me for anything in the happy days of my childhood. Don't sit there looking like a beastly churchwarden, you ass. Buck up, and take an intelligent interest in things. 'No, but really, Bishop, said Marriott, 'you must treat this seriously. You'll have to let the other chaps know about it. 'How?
Before Farnie's arrival, his form, the Upper Fourth, with the best intentions in the world, had not been skilful 'raggers'. They had ragged in an intermittent, once-a-week sort of way. When, however, he came on the scene, he introduced a welcome element of science into the sport. As witness the following.
As for Farnie, he returned to the junior day-room whistling 'Down South' in a soft but cheerful key, and solidified his growing popularity with doles of food from a hamper which he had brought with him. In short, Farnie's first evening at Beckford had been quite a triumph. Estimating it roughly, it takes a new boy at a public school about a week to find his legs and shed his skin of newness.
Pringle on such occasions used to ride over to Biddlehampton, the scene of Farnie's adventures, on somebody else's bicycle, his destination being the residence of a certain Colonel Ashby, no relation, but a great friend of his father's. The gallant Colonel had, besides his other merits which were numerous the pleasant characteristic of leaving his guests to themselves.
But Nature had endowed that youth with a fund of vitriolic repartee. When Millett, one of Leicester's juniors, evolved some laborious sarcasm on the subject of Farnie's swell friends, Farnie, in a series of three remarks, reduced him, figuratively speaking, to a small and palpitating spot of grease. After that his actions came in for no further, or at any rate no outspoken comment.
In the case of the latter, directly the Skinner episode had been noised abroad, and it was discovered in addition that he was a promising bat, public opinion recognized that here was a youth out of the common run of new boys, and the Lower Fourth the form in which he had been placed on arrival took him to its bosom as an equal. Farnie's case was exceptional.
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