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Updated: June 22, 2025
"So have I." "Good. Now, what first attracted you his good looks or his virtues?" "Neither. His vices." "Here, hang me, Radley," said Chappy, "you want examining. You're not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's opinion; that'll be a guinea, please." After this I ceased to listen. The talk was all about Doe, and rather silly.
"But, sir," I said, desiring to justify myself, "I couldn't help thinking that Mr. Fillet did it on purpose to pay me out." Radley frowned. "You mustn't say such things. But, were it so, any fool can be resentful, while it takes a big man to sacrifice himself and his petty quarrels for the good of great numbers. You will do it to save the school from hurt.
"Certainly," muttered Penny again. "Bend over." I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. Radley was a cricketer with a big reputation for cutting and driving; and three drives, right in the middle of the cane, convinced me what a first-class hitter he was.
"Stop quarrelling about the match," said Radley, as he stood with his back to the mantelpiece, "and listen to me. It's a great day, this a day of triumph. Ray has won the innings victory for the School, and Doe " Doe pricked up his ears. "It's just out Doe has won the Horace Prize." At this news there were great congratulations of the poet, who went red with pleasure.
Radley turned round and, having seen me, said something in an undertone to Chappy. I imagine he drew attention to my proximity, for Chappy laughed out: "O law! Glory be!" and continued in a lower voice. My sense of honour was not so nice that it prevented me from trying to catch the rest of their conversation.
I was still under the glamour of having been appealed to by the forceful personality of Pennybet; and, besides, it certainly wasn't. "Oh, of course you'd agree with anything Penny said, if he asked you to. But you know you don't really believe I ever sucked up to Radley." This rejoinder was bad tactics, for by its blow at my face it forced me to take sides against him in the quarrel.
"Thank you kindly, Mrs Trotman," said Mick, "and here's your very good health." "Then I am in the dark," said Chaffing Jack, replying to the previous observation of Devilsdust, "for I never see a newspaper now except a week old, and that lent by a friend, I who used to take my Sun regular, to say nothing of the Dispatch, and Bell's Life. Times is changed, Mr Radley."
On a little table of dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from his guardian's wife, Lady Radley, who had spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn and the edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of the St. James's Gazette had been placed on the tea-tray.
"I s'pose he's heard all about it. I hope he has at least, I mean, I'd like him to think I stuck by you. Only, when the prefects were talking about defiance, it struck me that Radley might call it 'insubordination." There was a pause, and then he proceeded: "I wonder if he'll be sorry when he hears we are both laid up." "Who?" "Why, Radley, of course." "Mr. Radley," said a voice, "if you please."
And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the full story of Doe's sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration. And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence. Time carried us a year nearer the shadow of the Great War.
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