"It won't do you any harm!" said Chips eagerly.
"It won't do me any good," persisted Jan. "Haigh knows; that's good enough for me, and you bet it's good enough for Haigh!"
And Chips respected his friend the more because there was no bid for his respect in Jan's attitude, and he seemed so unconscious of the opportunity for notoriety, or rather of its advantages as they presented themselves to the more sophisticated boy.
"But who put you up to it?" inquired Chips, already vexed with his own docility in the whole matter of the Aytoun's Lay; it would be some comfort to find that the Tiger had not thought of such a counterstroke himself. And the Tiger was perfectly candid on the point, setting forth his military uncle's views with much simplicity, and thereafter singing the captain's praises in a fashion worthy of the enthusiastic Chips himself.
"What's his initials?" exclaimed that inquirer when the surname had slipped out.
"R. N., I believe," replied the Tiger. "I know they call him Dick."
"R. N. it is!" cried Chips, and stood up before a little row of green and red volumes in his shelves. "He's the cricketer—must be—did he never tell you so?"
"We never talked about cricket," said Jan, with unfeigned indifference. "But he used to wear cricketing ties, now you remind me. One was green and black, and another was half the colours of the rainbow."
"That's the I. Z.," cried Chips, "and here we have the very man as large as life!" And he read out from the green Lillywhite of a bygone day: 'Capt. R. N Ambrose (Eton), M.C.C. and I. Zingari. With a little more first-class cricket would have been one of the best bats in England; a rapid scorer with great hitting powers.' I
