The White Feather | Page 7

in our house got a tea out of him that way last term. Coming, Menzies?"
"Not much. I hope he kicks you out."
"Come on, then, Linton. If Menzies cares to chuck away a square meal, let him."
Thus, no sooner had the door of Sheen's study closed upon Stanning than it was opened again to admit Linton and Dunstable.
"Well," said Linton, affably, "here we are."
"Hope we're not late," said Dunstable. "You said somewhere about five. It's just struck. Shall we start?"
He stooped, and took the kettle from the stove.
"Don't you bother," he said to Sheen, who had watched this manoeuvre with an air of amazement, "I'll do all the dirty work."
"But--" began Sheen.
"That's all right," said Dunstable soothingly. "I like it."
The intellectual pressure of the affair was too much for Sheen. He could not recollect having invited Linton, with whom he had exchanged only about a dozen words that term, much less Dunstable, whom he merely knew by sight. Yet here they were, behaving like honoured guests. It was plain that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he shrank from grappling with it. He did not want to hurt their feelings. It would be awkward enough if they discovered their mistake for themselves.
So he exerted himself nervously to play the host, and the first twinge of remorse which Linton felt came when Sheen pressed upon him a bag of biscuits which, he knew, could not have cost less than one and sixpence a pound. His heart warmed to one who could do the thing in such style.
Dunstable, apparently, was worried by no scruples. He leaned back easily in his chair, and kept up a bright flow of conversation.
"You're not looking well, Sheen," he said. "You ought to take more exercise. Why don't you come down town with us one of these days and do a bit of canvassing? It's a rag. Linton lost a tooth at it the other day. We're going down on Saturday to do a bit more."
"Oh!" said Sheen, politely.
"We shall get one or two more chaps to help next time. It isn't good enough, only us two. We had four great beefy hooligans on to us when Linton got his tooth knocked out. We had to run. There's a regular gang of them going about the town, now that the election's on. A red-headed fellow, who looks like a butcher, seems to boss the show. They call him Albert. He'll have to be slain one of these days, for the credit of the school. I should like to get Drummond on to him."
"I was expecting Drummond to tea," said Sheen.
"He's running and passing with the fifteen," said Linton. "He ought to be in soon. Why, here he is. Hullo, Drummond!"
"Hullo!" said the newcomer, looking at his two fellow-visitors as if he were surprised to see them there.
"How were the First?" asked Dunstable.
"Oh, rotten. Any tea left?"
Conversation flagged from this point, and shortly afterwards Dunstable and Linton went.
"Come and tea with me some time," said Linton.
"Oh, thanks," said Sheen. "Thanks awfully."
"It was rather a shame," said Linton to Dunstable, as they went back to their study, "rushing him like that. I shouldn't wonder if he's quite a good sort, when one gets to know him."
"He must be a rotter to let himself be rushed. By Jove, I should like to see someone try that game on with me."
In the study they had left, Drummond was engaged in pointing this out to Sheen.
"The First are rank bad," he said. "The outsides were passing rottenly today. We shall have another forty points taken off us when we play Ripton. By the way, I didn't know you were a pal of Linton's."
"I'm not," said Sheen.
"Well, he seemed pretty much at home just now."
"I can't understand it. I'm certain I never asked him to tea. Or Dunstable either. Yet they came in as if I had. I didn't like to hurt their feelings by telling them."
Drummond stared.
"What, they came without being asked! Heavens! man, you must buck up a bit and keep awake, or you'll have an awful time. Of course those two chaps were simply trying it on. I had an idea it might be that when I came in. Why did you let them? Why didn't you scrag them?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Sheen uncomfortably.
"But, look here, it's rot. You must keep your end up in a place like this, or everybody in the house'll be ragging you. Chaps will, naturally, play the goat if you let them. Has this ever happened before?"
Sheen admitted reluctantly that it had. He was beginning to see things. It is never pleasant to feel one has been bluffed.
"Once last term," he said, "Smith, a chap in Day's, came to tea like that. I couldn't very well do anything."
"And Dunstable is in Day's. They compared notes.