Boycotted | Page 2

suffered. But we moped
and missed him at every turn, and wished the miserable term were
ending instead of beginning.
This, however, is a long digression. I sat down to write the story of my
own trouble, not Browne's. But the reader will understand now why I

said that, as it was, apart from my own misfortunes, the term, which
had still a month more to run when my story begins, had been a dismal
one.
---
I was wandering about the playground one frosty November morning,
beginning to hope that if a frost should come we might after all get a
little fun at Draven's before the holidays came, when Odger junior,
whistling shrilly, crossed my path.
Odger junior was not exactly my fag, for we had no fags at Draven's,
and if we had had, I had not yet reached that pitch of dignity at which
one fellow has the right to demand the services of another. Still Odger
junior had, for a consideration, done a good many odd jobs for me, and
I had got into the way of regarding him as a quasi-fag.
"Hullo, youngster!" said I, as we met, "there's going to be a stunning
frost. Can't you smell it in the air? I wish you'd cut down to Bangle's
and get me a pair of straps for my skates."
To my astonishment, not wholly unmixed with amusement, Odger
junior regarded me majestically for a moment, and then, ejaculating the
oracular phrase, "Oh, ah!" walked off, his four-foot-one drawn to its
full height, his hands behind his back, and his mouth still drawn up for
whistling, but apparently too overcome with dignity to emit the music
which an observer would naturally be led to expect.
I was not on the whole a short-tempered youth. My laziness saved me
from that. It certainly did occur to me on this bright frosty morning that
it would be exhilarating both for young Odger and me if I were to go
after him and kick him. But what was the use? He would enjoy it as
much as I should. There would be plenty of ways in which to pay him
out less fatiguing than an undignified chase round the playground. So I
let him go, and grinned to think how much nicer monkeys are when
they behave like monkeys, and not like men.
I had a lot of work to do in my study that morning before afternoon

school, and so had very little time to think of Odger junior, or any one
else. As it was, I was only just in time to take my usual place in the
Greek class when Mr Draven sailed into the room and the lesson began.
I had been so flurried by my hasty arrival that I did not at first observe
that the desk on my right, usually occupied by a boy called Potter, was
vacant.
"Where's Potter?" I asked of my neighbour on the left. "Is he--why,
there he is at Browne's old desk!" I added, catching sight of the deserter
across the room.
Browne's desk had always been left empty since its late owner went.
None of us had cared to appropriate it, and the sight of it day after day
had fed our sorrow over his loss. It seemed to me, therefore, an act
almost of disloyalty on Potter's part towards the memory of my old
chum to install himself coolly at his desk without saying a word to
anybody.
"What's he gone there for?" I inquired of Sadgrove on my left. "He's
got no--"
"Don't talk to me!" said Sadgrove.
Sadgrove was in a temper, and I wasn't surprised. So was I, lazy as I
was. We had all stuck to Browne through the term, and it was a little
too much now to find a fellow like Potter, who professed to be
Browne's friend too, stepping in this cold-blooded way into his place.
Sadgrove was put up to construe, so there was no opportunity for
further conversation, had we desired it.
I wasn't surprised that Potter avoided me in the playground after school.
He guessed, I supposed, what I had to say to him, and had the decency
to be ashamed of himself. However, I was determined to have it out,
and that evening, after preparation, went up to his study. He was there,
and looked guilty enough when he saw me.
"Look here, Potter," I began, trying to be friendly in spite of all. I got

no further, for Potter, without a word, walked out of the door, leaving
me standing alone in the middle of his study.
I had seen the working of a guilty conscience once or twice before at
Draven's, but never knew it to work in quite so strange a manner as it