Acton's Feud Part 31

"What order?" said Jim, looking curiously at Gus.

"What's the good of trying to pa.s.s it off like that, old man? It could only be you."

"I don't know what you're driving at. You seem to be talking rot," said Cotton, angrily, for he fancied that Gus was fooling him in some way.

"Well, I've got an order for 1 this morning, envelope stamped St.

Amory, and it could only come from some one who knew I was stumped, and you're the only fellow who knew that, unless, indeed, you've been kind enough to tell some of the fellows."

"I've told no one; and anyway, I didn't send the order."

"Oh, rot!"

"Thanks! I don't tell lies as a rule, and I say I know nothing whatever about your order. I think you'd better cut now, instead of wasting my time with this rotten foolery."

"You didn't send it?" said Gus, finally, with more than a dash of irritation in his voice at the continued boorishness of Cotton.

"No, I tell you! Shall I get a foghorn and let you have it that way?"

"Then, look here, Cotton. If you didn't send it, your underscoring of my name on the house list because I couldn't subscribe was the act of an arrant cad."

Cotton winced at Gus's concise definition, but he said, "Oh, get out, you fool!"

"Fool, or not," said Gus, becoming more angry every moment as he thought of his wrongs, "I'm not an underbred loafer who cleans a fellow out of his cash and then rounds on him because he can't pay his way. Why, a Whitechapel guttersnipe----"

"Can't appreciate the allusion," said Jim; "I've never been to Whitechapel. But anyhow, Todd, there's the door. I think you had really better go."

"Not till I've said you're the biggest bounder in St. Amory's."

"Now you've said it you really must go, or I'll throw you out!"

Gus was too taken up with his own pa.s.sion to notice that Cotton was also at about the limit of his patience, and that Jim's lips had set into a grim and ugly sneer. Todd was furiously trying to find some clinching expression which would quite define Jim's conduct, when that gentleman took one stride forward and caught him by the collar. The grip, the very touch of Cotton's fingers maddened Gus beyond all bearing. His anger broke loose from all control; he wrenched himself out of Cotton's grasp and pa.s.sionately struck him on the mouth.

Cotton turned grey with pa.s.sion as bitter as Todd's and repaid Gus's blow with interest. Gus dropped to the floor, bleeding villainously.

Cotton thereupon jerked him to his feet, and threw him out of the room.

Gus picked himself up from the corridor floor and went to his own room, his face as white as a sheet and his heart as black as ink. What Gus suffered from his pa.s.sion, his shame, his hatred, and the pain of his old friend's blow, for the next few hours words will not tell. He attended morning school, his head in a whirl of thought. Cotton was there too, and, could looks have killed, Jim Cotton would not have been in the land of the living for very long. When Merishall went, Gus waited until all the form had filed out, and, still dizzy and sick, he wearily followed suit and turned in at his own door. As Gus came into the room some one rose up and faced round to meet him, and Todd found himself once more face to face with Cotton.

Now, the blow which had tumbled down Gus so heartily had, so to speak, tumbled down the striker in his own mind just as thoroughly. Jim Cotton's mind was not a subtle one, but the minute after he had floored Gus and shut the door on him, his better mind told him distinctly that he was a cad. Why? Because when he struck Gus the feeling was as though he had struck a cripple. Gus had doubled up under the weight of his hand as though he had been a leaf. Cotton dimly felt that for a fellow of his build and weight to let Gus have the full benefit of both was not fair.

"That is how it must feel, I suppose, to strike a girl. My fist seems unclean," he said, in huge disgust. "I'd give Todd his three sovs. back if I could recall that blow. I wish I'd left the fool alone, and anyhow, it's my opinion I don't s.h.i.+ne much in our little squabble. Todd has been playing the man since his Perry cropper, and I've been playing the cad just because he was once useful to me and I did not want to let him go."

Cotton devoted the next few hours to a little honest unselfish thinking, and the result was that he came pretty near to despising himself. "I'll go and apologize to Gus, and if he s.h.i.+es the poker at my head I'm hanged if I dodge it."

That is why Gus was received in his own room by the fellow who had so lately knocked him down. Gus stared at Jim, his swollen lip trembling with anger and his eyes blazing with indignation.

"I say, Gus, old man, I am an utter out-and-out cad, and I've come to apologize."

Gus murmured something indistinctly.

"When I knocked you down I did the most blackguardly thing that even I have ever done, and, you may believe me or not, I am now about disgusted with myself. I felt that there was only one thing that I could do, and that was to apologize."

Jim was so obviously cut up by remorse that Gus thereupon buried the hatchet. He did not throw the poker at Jim's head, and you may be surprised to hear--or you may not--that Gus and Jim Cotton took their after-dinner coffee at Hooper's, as in the old time. The conversation was _staccato_ at first, but interesting.

"But who sent the order?" said Gus.

"Dunno, really; but I could almost bet my boots that Taylor is the criminal."

"Taylor! What does he know of my affairs?"

"Well, that beastly house list with your red raw agony column made him most suspicious, and I believe he knows to a hair exactly how big a cad I've been."

"Go on, old man; leave that."

"He sucked Philips dry about the Penfold tombstone, and although he said nothing to me personally, Philips gave me to understand that I'm not in favour with the parson. Taylor is the man who's provided your sub. for the Penfold, take my word for it."

"He's not half such a bad fellow, Jim."

"No," said Jim, with an uneasy laugh; "Taylor's all right, but he'll make me squirm when he has the chance."

The friends.h.i.+p of Cotton and Todd was thus renewed and cemented--with Gus's bluest blood. Gus gave Jim some good advice about the schools, which made Jim feel a bit dubious.

"Chuck your Bohn's cribs and your keys under the grate, and show up your own work."

"Footle, you mean, Gus."

"All right, footle, then. I know all our own private personal beaks would rather have a fellow's own work, if of fair quality, than all the weirdest screeds from any crib whatsoever."

Jim made the experiment, very gingerly, be it said, but did show up his own work, and from Corker to Merishall all the beaks were civil to him.

Gus's reputation as a prophet was established, for Corker himself seemed pleased with the Cottonian version of Herodotus.

"Rather rough in parts, Cotton," said the old man, beaming on the shrinking Jim; "but at least you've not been ploughing Herodotus with the help of your old a.s.s, Bohn."

Jim's effort, however, came too late to affect in any degree his position in the Fifth. When the lists of the Easter term were published, Cotton was the last, deservedly, of the form, but A.V.R. Todd was the seventh. This was an eye-opener to many in the form, but the result sent Gus into the seventh heaven of delight. Taylor came specially into Todd's modest sanctum to congratulate him, and Corker sent an extra special letter to Todd senior, saying all manner of sweet things about Gus. He put the highest mark of his favour upon the delighted Gus by asking him to dinner--a very great honour, but a dreadful ordeal. Gus was wonderfully nervous as he commenced his soup. How do I know? Well, I had been asked, I believe, to give the bewildered Gus a little countenance. Gus went home, a day or two later, to the bosom of his family, where he was treated with the utmost honour. He redeemed the watch from the jeweller, and fulfilled his own promise to that worthy man. All through the holidays he basked in the smiles of his proud father, and rode that gentleman's pedigree hack. Corker's highest mark of appreciation was to give you a dinner; with Gus's father it was to let you ride his own horse.

CHAPTER XXV

A LITTLE ROUGH JUSTICE

Quietly and without any fuss the few details were arranged, and next morning four of us filtered down to the old milling ground, on whose green sod so many wrongs had been righted in the old times, and where I sincerely hoped Phil would yet redress, however imperfectly, another.

Of course, we all know fisticuffs are not what they were; for every strenuous mill of to-day there used to be fifty in the old days, and the green turf which formerly was the scene of terrific combats between fellows of the Upper School now only quaked under the martial hoof of, say, Rogers, the prize f.a.g of Biffen's, and Poulett, the champion egg poacher of Corker's, and other humble followers of the "fancy." Milling as an inst.i.tution in the schools may write up "Ichabod" above its gates.

I tossed with Vercoe for corners, and when I won, I chose the favourite corner, the one King had when he fought Sellers with a broken wrist, and beat him, too; which Cooper had when he stood up to Miller for one whole half-holiday, and though beaten three or four times over, never knew it, and won in the end, which mills and the causes thereof, if some one would write about them, would make capital reading. Anyhow, it is a lucky corner, from the legends connected with it, and I thought we should need any luck that might be knocking about so early in the morning.

Phil was as cool and calm as though he were going to gently tund a small f.a.g for s.h.i.+rking. Acton was outwardly calm, but inwardly seething with hate, rage, and blood-thirstiness. His proud soul l.u.s.ted for the opportunity to repay the flick on the face he had received from Phil, with interest. I watched the sparkling fire in his eye, the unaffected eagerness for the fray in his pose, and thought that even Acton had not quite the skill to cater for such a large and l.u.s.ty appet.i.te. Vercoe and I set our watches, and agreed to call time together, and then we moved each to our corner. Phil peeled as quietly as though he were going to bed, Acton with feverish haste, which perhaps was his foreign blood working out; beside Acton's swift, impulsive movements Phil's leisurely arrangements seemed sluggish indeed.

"Time!" said Vercoe and I in chorus, and I added in an undertone to my man, "Go in and win."