The Channings. Henry Wood

the master; “and, if they go on as they seem to be going on now, I’ll keep them without it for a twelvemonth. I believe the inking of that surplice was a concocted plan, look you, Galloway, to—”

      “To what?” asked Mr. Galloway, for the master stopped short.

      “Never mind, just yet. I have my strong suspicions as to the guilty boy, and I am doing what I can to convert them into proofs. If it be as I suspect now, I shall expel him.”

      “But what could it have been done for?” debated Mr. Galloway. “There’s no point in the thing, that I can see, to ink and damage a surplice. If the boy to whom it belonged had been inked, one might not have wondered so much.”

      “I’ll ‘point him,’” cried the master, “if I catch the right one.”

      “Could it have been one of the seniors?” returned the proctor, all his strong interest awakened.

      “It was one who ought to have known better,” evasively returned the master. “I can’t stop to talk now, Galloway. I have an errand to do, and must be back to duty at ten.”

      He marched off quickly, and Mr. Galloway came indoors again. “Is that the way you get on with your business, Mr. Yorke?”

      Yorke clattered to his desk. “I’ll get on with it, sir. I was listening to what the master said.”

      “It does not concern you, what he said. It was not one of your brothers who did it, I suppose?”

      “No, that it was not,” haughtily spoke Roland Yorke, drawing up his head with a proud, fierce gesture.

      Mr. Galloway withdrew to his private room, and for a few minutes silence supervened—nothing was to be heard but the scratching of pens. But Roland Yorke, who had a great antipathy to steady work, and as great a love for his own tongue, soon began again.

      “I say, Channing, what an awful blow the dropping of that expected money must be for you fellows! I’m blest if I didn’t dream of it last night! If it spoilt my rest, what must it have done by yours!”

      “Why! how could you have heard of it last night?” exclaimed Arthur, in surprise. “I don’t think a soul came to our house to hear the news, except Mr. Yorke: and you were not likely to see him. He left late. It is in every one’s mouth this morning.”

      “I had it from Hamish. He came to the party at the Knivetts’. Didn’t Hamish get taken in!” laughed Roland. “He understood it was quite a ladies’ affair, and loomed in, dressed up to the nines, and there he found only a bachelor gathering of Dick’s. Hamish was disappointed, I think; he fancied he was going to meet Ellen Huntley; and glum enough he looked—”

      “He had only just heard of the loss,” interrupted Arthur. “Enough to make him look glum.”

      “Rubbish! It wasn’t that. He announced at once that the money was gone for good and all, and laughed over it, and said there were worse disasters at sea. Knivett said he never saw a fellow carry ill news off with so high a hand. Had he been proclaiming the accession of a fortune, instead of the loss of one, he could not have been more carelessly cheerful. Channing, what on earth shall you do about your articles?”

      A question that caused the greatest pain, especially when put by Roland Yorke; and Arthur’s sensitive face flushed.

      “You’ll have to stop as a paid clerk for interminable years! Jenkins, you’ll have him for your bosom companion, if you look sharp and make friends,” cried Roland, laughing loudly.

      “No, sir, I don’t think Mr. Arthur Channing is likely to become a paid clerk,” said Jenkins.

      “Not likely to become a paid clerk! why, he is one. If he is not one, I’d like to know who is. Channing, you know you are nothing else.”

      “I may be something else in time,” quietly replied Arthur, who knew how to control his rebellious spirit.

      “I say, what a rum go it is about that surplice!” exclaimed Roland Yorke, dashing into another topic. “It’s not exactly the mischief itself that’s rum, but the master seem to be making so much stir and mystery over it! And then the hint at the seniors! They must mean Huntley.”

      “I don’t know who they mean,” said Arthur, “but I am sure Huntley never did it. He is too open, too honourable—”

      “And do you pretend to say that Tom Channing and my brother Ger are not honourable?” fiercely interrupted Roland Yorke.

      “There you go, Yorke; jumping to conclusions! It is not to be credited that any one of the seniors did it: still less, if they had done it, that they would not acknowledge it. They are all boys of truth and honour, so far as I believe. Huntley, I am sure, is.”

      “And of Tom, also, I conclude you feel sure?”

      “Yes, I do.”

      “And I am sure of Ger Yorke. So, if the master is directing his suspicion to the seniors, he’ll get floored. It’s odd what can have turned it upon them.”

      “I don’t think the master suspects the seniors,” said Arthur. “He called them to his aid.”

      “You heard what he just now said to Galloway. Jenkins, there is a knock at the door.”

      Jenkins went to open it. He came back, and said Mr. Yorke was wanted.

      Roland lazily proceeded to the outer passage, and, when he saw who was standing there, he put himself into a passion. “What do you mean by presuming to come to me here?” he haughtily asked.

      “Well, sir, perhaps you’ll tell me where I am to come, so as to get to see you?” civilly replied the applicant, one who bore the appearance of a tradesman. “It seems it’s of no use going to your house; if I went ten times a day, I should get the same answer—that you are not at home.”

      “Just take yourself off,” said Roland.

      “Not till you pay me; or tell me for certain when you will pay me, and keep your promise. I want my money, sir, and I must have it.”

      “We want a great many things that we can’t get,” returned Roland, in a provokingly light tone. “I’ll pay you as soon as I can, man; you needn’t be afraid.”

      “I’m not exactly afraid,” spoke the man. “I suppose if it came to it, Lady Augusta would see that I had the money.”

      “You hold your tongue about Lady Augusta. What’s Lady Augusta to you? Any odds and ends that I may owe, have nothing to do with Lady Augusta. Look here, Simms, I’ll pay you next week.”

      “You have said that so many times, Mr. Yorke.”

      “At any rate, I’ll pay you part of it next week, if I can’t the whole. I will, upon my honour. There! now you know that I shall keep my word.”

      Apparently satisfied, the man departed, and Roland lounged into the office again with the same idle movements that he had left it.

      “It was that confounded Simms,” grumbled he. “Jenkins, why did you say I was in?”

      “You did not tell me to say the contrary, sir. He came yesterday, but you were out then.”

      “What does he want?” asked Arthur.

      “Wanted me to pay him a trifle I owe; but it’s not convenient to do it till next week. What an Eden this lower world might be, if debt had never been invented!”

      “You need not get into debt,” said Arthur. “It is not compulsory.”

      “One might build a mud hut outside the town walls, and shut one’s self up in it, and eat herbs for dinner, and sleep upon rushes, and turn hermit for good!” retorted Roland. “You need not talk about debt, Channing.”

      “I don’t owe much,” said Arthur, noting the significance of Yorke’s concluding sentence.

      “If you don’t, some one else does.”

      “Who?”

      “Ask Hamish.”

      Arthur