The Gold Bat Read online

  VI

  TREVOR REMAINS FIRM

  The most immediate effect of telling anybody not to do a thing is tomake him do it, in order to assert his independence. Trevor's first acton receipt of the letter was to include Barry in the team against theTown. It was what he would have done in any case, but, under thecircumstances, he felt a peculiar pleasure in doing it. The incidentalso had the effect of recalling to his mind the fact that he had triedBarry in the first instance on his own responsibility, withoutconsulting the committee. The committee of the first fifteen consistedof the two old colours who came immediately after the captain on thelist. The powers of a committee varied according to the determinationand truculence of the members of it. On any definite and importantstep, affecting the welfare of the fifteen, the captain theoreticallycould not move without their approval. But if the captain happened tobe strong-minded and the committee weak, they were apt to be slightlyout of it, and the captain would develop a habit of consulting them aday or so after he had done a thing. He would give a man his colours,and inform the committee of it on the following afternoon, when thething was done and could not be repealed.

  Trevor was accustomed to ask the advice of his lieutenants fairlyfrequently. He never gave colours, for instance, off his own bat. Itseemed to him that it might be as well to learn what views Milton andAllardyce had on the subject of Barry, and, after the Town team hadgone back across the river, defeated by a goal and a try to nil, hechanged and went over to Seymour's to interview Milton.

  Milton was in an arm-chair, watching Renford brew tea. His was one ofthe few studies in the school in which there was an arm-chair. With themajority of his contemporaries, it would only run to the portable kindthat fold up.

  "Come and have some tea, Trevor," said Milton.

  "Thanks. If there's any going."

  "Heaps. Is there anything to eat, Renford?"

  The fag, appealed to on this important point, pondered darkly for amoment.

  "There _was_ some cake," he said.

  "That's all right," interrupted Milton, cheerfully. "Scratch the cake.I ate it before the match. Isn't there anything else?"

  Milton had a healthy appetite.

  "Then there used to be some biscuits."

  "Biscuits are off. I finished 'em yesterday. Look here, young Renford,what you'd better do is cut across to the shop and get some more cakeand some more biscuits, and tell 'em to put it down to me. And don't belong."

  "A miles better idea would be to send him over to Donaldson's to fetchsomething from my study," suggested Trevor. "It isn't nearly so far,and I've got heaps of stuff."

  "Ripping. Cut over to Donaldson's, young Renford. As a matter of fact,"he added, confidentially, when the emissary had vanished, "I'm not halfsure that the other dodge would have worked. They seem to think at theshop that I've had about enough things on tick lately. I haven'tsettled up for last term yet. I've spent all I've got on this study.What do you think of those photographs?"