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Updated: April 30, 2025
There were very few boys in Railsford's, as Felgate knew, who did not like it; but he fancied for all that he could make something out of the rule. He began by breaking it himself. He knew that no one would be particularly concerned on his account, for he was an indifferent player, and also a prefect might on a pinch excuse himself.
"If you'd done your duty, and stopped the row the moment it began," said Ainger; who, with all his jealousy for his house, had no toleration for humbug, even in a prefect whose cause he espoused. So Railsford's house went to bed that night in a warlike mood.
Few persons at Grandcourt gave the captain of Railsford's house credit for being as honest as he was short-tempered, and as jealous for the honour of his house as he was short-sighted as to the best means of securing it. And yet Ainger was all this; and when he went to bed that night Railsford himself did not look forward more anxiously to the opening term than did his first lieutenant.
The letter was a short one, written in an evidently disguised hand: "Sir, The name of the person who maltreated you lately is perfectly well-known in Railsford's house. No one knows his name better than Mr Railsford himself. But as the house is thriving by what has occurred, it is to nobody's interest to let out the secret.
Railsford's house, meanwhile, had celebrated the temporary absence of its ruler in strictly orthodox fashion. Scarcely had he departed, flattering himself that the deluded mice were still under the spell of the cat's presence in their neighbourhood, when the word went round like wildfire, "Coast's clear!"
Arthur thereupon proceeded to narrate the history of the finding of the match-box, sack, and wedge of paper, with which the reader is already familiar, and considerably astonished his worthy listener by the business-like way in which he appeared to have put two and two together, and to have laid the crime at his, Railsford's, door.
The origin of the deadly feud between the boys of Railsford's and the master of the adjoining house was a mystery passing the comprehension even of such as professed to understand the ins and outs of juvenile human nature. It had grown up like a mushroom, and no one exactly remembered how it began.
Perhaps Arthur had been telling them of the new master's athletic achievements at Cambridge, and how he had rowed his boat to the head of the river; or possibly he had been describing to them some of the big football-matches which he, Mark, had taken his young friend to see during the holidays; or maybe they were laying down some patriotic plan for the future good of Railsford's house.
He stayed away the next practice day, and, much to his mortification, nobody took the slightest notice of his absence. "You see," said Felgate, "if only one or two of you stand steady, they can't compel you to play. It's ridiculous." Next day, accordingly, three fellows stayed away; who, as they were the three premier louts in Railsford's, were never missed or inquired after.
Although the Grandcourt House Comedians were an old institution, they had not always been equally flourishing. At Railsford's, for instance, in past years they had decidedly languished.
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