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Now Pennybet liked to be the centre of attraction at friendly little gatherings like this, and had little inclination to sit and listen to people praising those who recently had been nothing but his satellites. So he lit a cigarette and said: "It's entirely the result of my training that these young people have turned out so well."
What silly things one thinks in an evening of suspense and twilight like this! One minute I feel I want to be alive this time to-morrow, in order that my book, which has become everything to me, may have a happy ending. Pennybet fell at Neuve Chapelle, Doe at Cape Helles, and one ought to be left alive to save the face of the tale.
Pennybet, who all this time had kept his mouth agape and impersonated the village idiot, laid down his pen, closed his book, and disposed himself to watch out the matter. He was always callous when in pursuit of his object; and his object now was to suck the humour out of my painful position.
There on the summer lawn he stood, unconsciously deliberating how best to give new expression to the personality of Archibald Pennybet.
I examined it and saw that it was stuffed up with dirt and there would be some delay outside the class-room door while the key underwent alterations and repairs. "Has any boy," I asked, "a pin?" None had; but Pennybet offered to go to Bramhall House in search of one. He could do it in twenty minutes, he said. "Dear me, how annoying!"
Archibald Pennybet, the boy who left school, determined to conquer the world, and coolly confident of his power to mould circumstances to his own ends, was crushed like an insect beneath the heavy foot of war. He was just put out by a high-explosive shell. It didn't kill him outright, but whipped forty jagged splinters into his body.
Pennybet to say cheerfully: "Here they come, the heirs to the world." As she spoke, Archie Pennybet, dark and dictatorial, and Edgar Doe, fair and enthusiastic, came into view. "Yes," replied Lady Gray, "but only two of them. There are others they must share it with. Shall we go indoors?" And indoors or out-of-doors, that was a very delightful day spent at Graysroof.
"I'm Cardinal Pennybet, papal legate from His Holiness Stanley the Great. Bickerton had the sauce to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge; and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you along.
All the Bramhall prefects were there Bickerton, Kepple-Goddard, and the prosecuting counsel, Banana-Skin; and Stanley Stanley by the grace of God. "Bring the boy Doe in," ordered Stanley, "and kick that gas-bag Pennybet out. If he were a year younger we'd whack him too." No one thought himself specifically addressed, and Penny was left in possession of the floor.
Thereafter Pennybet or, at least, so he assured us expended his spare time in knocking his head against walls and holding his breath in the hope that he, too, might faint and have a restful holiday in the sick-room. "For," said he, "where Doe and Ray are, there should Me be also."
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