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I suddenly remembered a scene, wherein I lay in the baths at Kensingtowe, recovering from a faint, and Dr. Chappy looked down upon me and said: "There may be a weakness at your heart." As I remembered it, the first time for years, my heart missed its beats.
Resting my elbows on the window-sill, I told myself that I hated Carpet Slippers; that I hated Doe and it was all his fault; that I wouldn't do the lines I wouldn't do them; that I didn't care if I was expelled; Kensingtowe was a beastly school, and Bramhall was its filthiest house. The sound of a step in the corridor behind me arrested my thoughts.
The railings of Kensingtowe over the roadway were still burnished and glistening with wet, as were the leaves of shrubs and trees. And the air that touched my cheek was all soft and sweet-smelling after rain.
"Ray's face looks as though somebody had trodden on it, and Doe's well, Doe's would be better if it had been trodden on." It was an early morning of the Kensingtowe Summer Term, and the three of us, Archie Pennybet, Edgar Gray Doe, and I, Rupert Ray, were waiting in the Junior Preparation Room at Bramhall House, till the bell should summon us over the playing fields to morning school.
"Is Gallipoli nothing to write about?" I retorted. "And you can't have spent five years at a great public school like Kensingtowe without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to tell stories."
So it happened that, while the Emperors of Central Europe were whispering that the Day had come and the slaughter of the youth of Christendom might begin, there was a gathering in Radley's room of those insignificant people whose little doings you have watched at Kensingtowe. They were assembled to drink tea and discuss the match.
I think I half hoped it would be my high lot to die on the battlefield. It was just the same glowing sensation that pervaded me one strange evening when, standing outside the baths at Kensingtowe, I first awoke to the joy of conscious life. "D'you see what I'm driving at?" asked the old Colonel. "Rather!" answered Doe, with eagerness.
"You won't do anything of the sort. Don't you see Radley's running you as a candidate to spite me? No, we'll fight this out, you and I. Shake on it, and good luck to your candidature!" "You ripping old tragedy hero!" answered I. "Good luck to yours." Now, all Kensingtowe amused itself speculating who would be the last man. Many names were mentioned, but Ray was not one of them.
But the boys, by common consent, decided not to identify this "Cæsar Reinhardt, Modern Language Master at Kensingtowe School" with their own dear Mr. Cæsar. Thus, you see, in their ignorance, they were able to bring up the Reinhardt works to Mr. Cæsar, and say with worried brows: "Here, sir.
In a rash moment, one half-holiday, Penny and I made use of the privilege, to which we became entitled when we completed two years at Kensingtowe, of strolling across to the Preparatory School and organising a cricket match between some of the younger "Sucker-boys." Not being allowed to go down to the town, we thought there might be fun in playing the heavy autocrat at the "Nursery."
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