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And besides, he was very likely to get the worst of the encounter. He was out of practise. Prefects do not descend to personalities. "My dear Priscilla," he said, "I only meant that I wouldn't tell you if it was the sort of thing a girl oughtn't to hear." "Like what Jimmy Kinsella has on Inishbawn," said Priscilla.
"Didn't you hear him say 'You're bluffing now'? That shows that he was bluffing before." "Oh, that's a bit too clever!" objected Stanley. "Give the kid a chance." There's nothing like sympathy for provoking misery and starting tears, and, as Stanley uttered that sentence, I decided that God had gone over to the prefects, and I would very much like to cry.
The prefects, usually members of the various Sixth Forms, were girls who had shown themselves worthy of responsibility and privilege and who could be trusted to set the tone of the School.
The mayors were appointed by the First Consul in communes of more than 5,000 souls: by the prefects in the smaller communes: all were alike responsible to the central power.
So impressed was Rickie that he peeped sideways, but could only see a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then he noticed that the boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They attended. The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully in the back row, were ranged like councillors beneath the central throne. This was an innovation of Mr. Pembroke's.
Then, too, everybody was looking at him, quizzing him, shrinking from him through timidity or running after him through interest. The new Minister of State! The chief of all the personnel of prefects, under-prefects, and secretaries-general represented there, lolling on these velvet divans in this vulgar greenroom.
Sir Charles Warren thought it his duty to dragoon London meetings after the fashion of Continental prefects, with the inevitable result that an ill-feeling grew up between the people and the police.
The headmaster nearly always invited a few of the house prefects to Sunday supper during the term. Sir Eustace Briggs happened to be there. He had withdrawn his insinuations concerning the part supposedly played by a member of the school in the matter of the tarred statue, and the headmaster had sealed the entente cordiale by asking him to supper.
When the meal was over, the whole school adjourned to the lecture-room to listen to an opening speech from Miss Lincoln, who usually began the term with an address to her pupils. The singing class sang a few glees, and there was a recitation by one of the prefects; after that came prayers, and then it was bedtime.
For one thing, they knew nothing of what was said and done in the Sixth Form studies, and even the prefects themselves never thought for a moment that this little bit of friction in the machinery of Ronleigh College would, figuratively speaking, lead to "hot bearings" and a narrow shave of a general breakdown.