A Dog with a Bad Name | Page 3

to do the same. But if some of them play, it'll look as

if you funked it."
"Who cares what it looks like?" said Farfield. "It will look like not
being made to do what they've no right to make us do--that's all I care
about."
"Well, I don't know," said Pridger, another of the Sixth; "if it came to
the School licking us, I fancy I'd try to prevent that."
"And if it came to the Sixth licking us," said young Forrester, who was
of the audacious order, "I fancy I'd try to put a stopper on that."
There was a smile at this, for the valiant junior was small for his age,
and flimsily built. Smiles, however, were not the order of the day, and
for the most part Bolsover brooded over her tribulations in sulky
silence.
The boys had not much in common, and even a calamity like the
present failed to bring them together. The big boys mooned about and
thought of their lost liberties, of the afternoons in the tuck-shop, of the
yellow- backed novels under the trees, of the loafings down town, and
wondered if they should ever be happy again. The little boys--some of
them--wept secretly in corners, as they pictured themselves among the
killed and wounded on the terrible football field. And as the sharp
October wind cut across the play-ground, they shuddered, great and
small, at the prospect of standing there on Saturday, without coats or
waistcoats, and wondered if Frampton was designedly dooming them to
premature graves.
A few, a very few, of the more sensible ones, tried to knock up a little
practice game and prepare themselves for the terrible ordeal. Among
these were two boys belonging to the group whose conversation the
reader has already overheard.
One of them, young Forrester, has already been introduced. Junior as
he was, he was a favourite all over Bolsover, for he was about the only
boy in the school who was always in good spirits, and did not seem to
be infected with the universal dry-rot of the place. He was a small,

handsome boy, older indeed then he looked (for he was nearly fifteen),
not particularly clever or particularly jocular. To look at him you would
have thought him delicate, but there was nothing feeble in his manner.
He looked you straight in the face with a pair of brown saucy eyes; he
was ready to break his neck to oblige any one; and his pocket- money
(fancy a Bolsover boy having pocket-money!) was common property.
Altogether he was a phenomenon at Bolsover, and fellows took to him
instinctively, as fellows often do take to one whose character and
disposition are a contrast to their own. Besides this, young Forrester
was neither a prig nor a toady, and devoted himself to no one in
particular, so that everybody had the benefit of his good spirits, and
enjoyed his pranks impartially.
The other boy, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen, was of a
different kind. He, too, was a cut above the average Bolsoverian, for he
was clever, and had a mind of his own. But he acted almost entirely on
antipathies. He disliked everybody, except, perhaps, young Forrester,
and he found fault with everything. Scarfe--that was his name was a
Sixth Form boy, who did the right thing because he disliked doing what
everybody else did, which was usually the wrong. He disliked his
school-fellows, and therefore was not displeased with Mr Frampton's
reforms; but he disliked Mr Frampton and the new masters, and
therefore hoped the school would resist their authority. As for what he
himself should do, that would depend on which particular antipathy
was uppermost when the time came.
Curiously enough, Bolsover by no means disliked Scarfe. They rather
respected a fellow who had ideas of his own, when they themselves had
so few; and as each boy, as a rule, could sympathise with his dislike of
everybody else, with one exception, he found plenty of adherents and
not a few toadies.
Forrester was about the only boy he really did not dislike, because
Forrester did not care twopence whether any one liked him or not, and
he himself was quite fond of Scarfe.
"What do you think the fellows will do?" said the junior, after
attempting for the sixth time to "drop" the ball over the goal without

success.
"Why, obey, of course," said Scarfe scornfully.
"Shall you?"
"I suppose so."
"Why, I thought you were going to stick out."
"No doubt a lot of the fellows would like it if I did. They always like
somebody else to do what they don't care to do themselves."
"Well, you and I'll be on different sides," said the youngster, making
another vain attempt at the goal. "I'm sorry