The Hill | Page 4

Fourth Form boys swallow that. Hullo! There's a
pal of mine. See you again."
He ran off gaily. John walked to the shop where straw hats were sold.
Here he met other new boys, who regarded him curiously, but said
nothing. John put on his hat, and gave Rutford's name to the young man
who waited on him. He had an absurd feeling that the young man
would say, "Oh yes--Dirty Dick's!" One very nice-looking
pink-cheeked boy said to another boy that he was at Damer's. John
could have sworn that the hatter's assistant regarded the pink youth
with increased deference. Why had Uncle John sent him to Dirty Dick's?
He hurried out of the shop, fuming. Then he remembered the
hammerless gun. After all, the Manor had been the house once, and it
might be the house again.
By this time the boys were arriving. Groups were forming. Snatches of
chatter reached John's ears. "Yes, I shot a stag, a nine-pointer. My
governor is going to have it set up for me---- What? Walked up your
grouse with dogs! We drive ours---- I had some ripping cricket, made a
century in one match---- By Jove! Did you really?----"
John passed on. These were "bloods," tremendous swells, grown men
with a titillating flavour of the world about their distinguished persons.
A minute later he was staring disconsolately at a group of his fellows
just in front of Dir----of Rutford's side door. An impulse seized him to
turn and flee. What would Uncle John say to that? So he advanced. The
boys made way politely, asking no questions. As he passed through he
caught a few eager words. "I was hoping that the brute had gone. It is a
sickener, and no mistake!"
John ascended the battered, worn-out staircase, wondering who the
"brute" was. Perhaps a sort of Flashman. John knew his Tom Brown;
but some one had told him that bullying had ceased to be. Great
emphasis had been laid on the "brute," whoever he might be.

Upon the second-floor passage, he found his room and one of its
tenants, who nodded carelessly as John crossed the threshold.
"I'm Scaife," he said. "Are you the Lord, or the Commoner?" He
laughed, indicating a large portmanteau, labelled, "Lord Esmé
Kinloch."
"I'm Verney," said John.
"I've bagged the best bed," said Scaife, after a pause, "and I advise you
to bag the next best one, over there. It was mine last term."
"I don't see the beds," said John, staring about him.
Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes.
The rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and
chests of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered
with innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.
"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the other
fellow."
"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.
"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.
"And what did you do?"
"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful
row, because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the rest
of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."
The bolt had fallen.

John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it is called that?"
"Called what?"
"This house. Dirty Dick's!"
Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also,
he was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking
contrast to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of
complexion, with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and
feet.
"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.
John stared helplessly.
"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
house in the school."
"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in; but,
between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."
John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For
instance, he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always
asked at a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words,
John divined