Tales of St. Austins | Page 4

it?' said Scott.
'Chaps oughtn't to go slamming about like that with the field full of
fellows. I suppose he won't be right by next Saturday?'
'Not a chance. Why? Oh, yes, I forgot. He was to have scored for the
team at Windybury, wasn't he?'
'Who are you going to get now?'
Venables was captain of the St Austin's team. The match next Saturday
was at Windybury, on the latter's ground.
'I haven't settled,' said Venables. 'But it's easy to get somebody. Scoring
isn't one of those things which only one chap in a hundred understands.'
Then Pillingshot had an idea--a great, luminous idea.
'May I score?' he asked, and waited trembling with apprehension lest
the request be refused.
'All right,' said Venables, 'I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. We
have to catch the 8.14 at the station. Don't you go missing it or
anything.'
'Rather _not_,' said Pillingshot. 'Not much.'
* * * * *
On Saturday morning, at exactly 9.15, Mr Mellish distributed the Livy
papers. When he arrived at Pillingshot's seat and found it empty, an
expression passed over his face like unto that of the baffled villain in
transpontine melodrama.
'Where is Pillingshot?' he demanded tragically. 'Where is he?'
'He's gone with the team to Windybury, sir,' said Parker, struggling to
conceal a large size in grins. 'He's going to score.'
'No,' said Mr Mellish sadly to himself, 'he has scored.'

[2]
THE ODD TRICK
The attitude of Philip St H. Harrison, of Merevale's House, towards his
fellow-man was outwardly one of genial and even sympathetic
toleration. Did his form-master intimate that his conduct was not his
idea of what Young England's conduct should be, P. St H. Harrison
agreed cheerfully with every word he said, warmly approved his
intention of laying the matter before the Headmaster, and accepted his
punishment with the air of a waiter booking an order for a chump chop
and fried potatoes. But the next day there would be a squeaking desk in
the form-room, just to show the master that he had not been forgotten.
Or, again, did the captain of his side at football speak rudely to him on
the subject of kicking the ball through in the scrum, Harrison would
smile gently, and at the earliest opportunity tread heavily on the
captain's toe. In short, he was a youth who made a practice of taking
very good care of himself. Yet he had his failures. The affair of
Graham's mackintosh was one of them, and it affords an excellent
example of the truth of the proverb that a cobbler should stick to his
last. Harrison's forte was diplomacy. When he forsook the arts of the
diplomatist for those of the brigand, he naturally went wrong. And the
manner of these things was thus.
Tony Graham was a prefect in Merevale's, and part of his duties was to
look after the dormitory of which Harrison was one of the ornaments. It
was a dormitory that required a good deal of keeping in order. Such
choice spirits as Braithwaite of the Upper Fourth, and Mace, who was
rapidly driving the master of the Lower Fifth into a premature grave,
needed a firm hand. Indeed, they generally needed not only a firm hand,
but a firm hand grasping a serviceable walking-stick. Add to these
Harrison himself, and others of a similar calibre, and it will be seen that
Graham's post was no sinecure. It was Harrison's custom to throw off
his mask at night with his other garments, and appear in his true
character of an abandoned villain, willing to stick at nothing as long as
he could do it strictly incog. In this capacity he had come into constant
contact with Graham. Even in the dark it is occasionally possible for a
prefect to tell where a noise comes from. And if the said prefect has
been harassed six days in the week by a noise, and locates it suddenly
on the seventh, it is wont to be bad for the producer and patentee of

same.
And so it came about that Harrison, enjoying himself one night, after
the manner of his kind, was suddenly dropped upon with violence. He
had constructed an ingenious machine, consisting of a biscuit tin, some
pebbles, and some string. He put the pebbles in the tin, tied the string to
it, and placed it under a chest of drawers. Then he took the other end of
the string to bed with him, and settled down to make a night of it. At
first all went well. Repeated inquiries from Tony failed to produce the
author of the disturbance, and when finally the questions ceased, and
the prefect appeared to have given the matter up as a bad job, P. St H.
Harrison began