The Queens Cup | Page 3

suspected of having had a hand, though
it was never proved. I was always convinced that he used cribs, and

partly owed his place to them. I was jealous enough to believe that the
Latin verses he sent in were written for him by Rigby, who was one of
the monitors, and a great dab at verses. Rigby was a great chum of his,
for he was a mean fellow, and my rival was always well supplied with
money, and to do him justice, liberal with it.
"Then, just before we left school, he carried off the prize in swimming.
He was a good swimmer, but I was a better. I thought myself for once
certain to beat him, but an hour before the race I got frightful cramps, a
thing that I never had before or since, and I could hardly make a fight at
all. I thought at the time, and I have thought since, that I must have
taken something at breakfast that disagreed with me horribly, and that
he somehow put it in my tea.
"Then again in that matter of the Sculls at Henley. I never felt my boat
row so heavily as it did then. When it was taken out of the water it was
found that a piece of curved iron hoop was fixed to the bottom by a nail
that had been pushed through the thin skin. It certainly was not there
when it was on the rack, but it was there when I rowed back to the
boathouse, and it could only have got there by being put on as the boat
was being lowered into the water. There were three or four men helping
to lower her down--two of them friends of mine, two of them fellows
employed at the boathouse. While it lay in the water, before I got in and
took my place, anyone stooping over it might unobserved have passed
his hand under it and have pushed the nail through.
"I never said anything about it. I had been beaten; there was no use
making a row and a scandal over it, especially as I had not a shadow of
proof against anyone; but I was certain that he was not so fast as I was,
for during practice my time had been as nearly as possible the same as
that of the man who beat him with the greatest ease, and I am
convinced that for once I should have got the better of him had it not
been for foul play."
"That was shameful, Captain Mallett," Bertha said, indignantly. "I
wonder you did not take some steps to expose him."
"I had nothing to go upon, Bertha. It was a case of suspicion only, and

you have no idea what a horrible row there would have been if I had
said anything about it. Committees would have sat upon it, and the
thing would have got into the papers. Fellows would have taken sides,
and I should have been blackguarded by one party for hinting that a
well-known University man had been guilty of foul practices.
"Altogether it would have been a horrible nuisance; it was much better
to keep quiet and say nothing about it."
"I am sure I could not have done that, Captain."
"No, but then you see women are much more impetuous than men. I am
certain that after you had once set the ball rolling, you would have been
sorry that you had not bided your time and waited for another contest in
which you might have turned the tables fairly and squarely."
"He must be hateful," the girl said.
"He is not considered hateful, I can assure you. He conceived a grudge
against me, and has taken immense pains to pay me out, and I only trust
that our paths will never cross again. If so, I have no doubt that I shall
again get the worst of it. At any rate, you see I was not without
justification when I said that though I did not believe in the Mal Occhio,
I had reason for having some little superstition about it."
"I prophesy, Captain Mallett, that if ever you meet him in the future
you will turn the tables on him. Such a man as that can never win in the
long run."
"Well, I hope that your prophecy will come true. At any rate I shall try,
and I hope that your good wishes will counterbalance his power, and
that you will be a sort of Mascotte."
"How tiresome!" the girl broke off, as there was a movement among
the ladies. "It is time for us to go up to dress for dinner, and though I
shan't take half the time that some of them will do, I suppose