After all he had gone through that night, it disturbed Fenn very little to find on the following morning that the professional cracksman had gone off with one of the cups in his study. Certainly, it was not as bad as it might have been, for he had only abstracted one out of the half dozen that decorated the room. Fenn was a fine runner, and had won the "sprint" events at the sports for two years now.
The news of the burglary at Kay's soon spread about the school. Mr Kay mentioned it to Mr Mulholland, and Mr Mulholland discussed it at lunch with the prefects of his house. The juniors of Kay's were among the last to hear of it, but when they did, they made the most of it, to the disgust of the School House fags, to whom the episode seemed in the nature of an infringement of copyright. Several spirited by-battles took place that day owing to this, and at the lower end of the table of Kay's dining-room at tea that evening there could be seen many swollen countenances. All, however, wore pleased smiles. They had proved to the School House their right to have a burglary of their own if they liked. It was the first occasion since Kennedy had become head of the house that Kay's had united in a common and patriotic cause.
Directly afternoon school was over that day, Fenn started for the town. The only thing that caused him any anxiety now was the fear lest the cap which he had left in the house in the High Street might rise up as evidence against him later on. Except for that, he was safe. The headmaster had evidently not remembered his absence from the festive board, or he would have spoken to him on the subject before now. If he could but recover the lost cap, all would be right with the world. Give him back that cap, and he would turn over a new leaf with a rapidity and emphasis which would lower the world's record for that performance. He would be a reformed character. He would even go to the extent of calling a truce with Mr Kay, climbing down to Kennedy, and offering him his services in his attempt to lick the house into shape.
As a matter of fact, he had had this idea before. Jimmy Silver, who was in the position—common at school—of being very friendly with two people who were not on speaking terms, had been at him on the topic.
"It's rot," James had said, with perfect truth, "to see two chaps like you making idiots of themselves over a house like Kay's. And it's all your fault, too," he had added frankly. "You know jolly well you aren't playing the game. You ought to be backing Kennedy up all the time. Instead of which, you go about trying to look like a Christian martyr—"
"I don't," said Fenn, indignantly.
"Well, like a stuffed frog, then—it's all the same to me. It's perfect rot. If I'm walking with Kennedy, you stalk past as if we'd both got the plague or something. And if I'm with you, Kennedy suddenly remembers an appointment, and dashes off at a gallop in the opposite direction. If I had to award the bronze medal for drivelling lunacy in this place, you would get it by a narrow margin, and Kennedy would be proxime, and honourably mentioned. Silly idiots!"
"Don't stop, Jimmy. Keep it up," said Fenn, settling himself in his chair. The dialogue was taking place in Silver's study.
"My dear chap, you didn't think I'd finished, surely! I was only trying to find some description that would suit you. But it's no good. I can't. Look here, take my advice—the advice," he added, in the melodramatic voice he was in the habit of using whenever he wished to conceal the fact that he was speaking seriously, "of an old man who wishes ye both well. Go to Kennedy, fling yourself on his chest, and say, 'We have done those things which we ought not to have done—' No. As you were! Compn'y, 'shun! Say 'J. Silver says that I am a rotter. I am a worm. I have made an ass of myself. But I will be good. Shake, pard!' That's what you've got to do. Come in."
And in had come Kennedy. The attractions of Kay's were small, and he usually looked in on Jimmy Silver in the afternoons.
"Oh, sorry," he said, as he saw Fenn. "I thought you were alone, Jimmy." "I was just going," said Fenn, politely.
"Oh, don't let me disturb you," protested Kennedy, with winning courtesy.
"Not at all," said Fenn.
"Oh, if you really were—"
"Oh, yes, really."
"Get out, then," growled Jimmy, who had been listening in speechless disgust to the beautifully polite conversation just recorded. "I'll forward that bronze medal to you, Fenn."
And as the door closed he had turned to rend Kennedy as he had rent Fenn; while Fenn walked back to Kay's feeling that there was a good deal in what Jimmy had said.
So that when he went down town that afternoon in search of his cap, he pondered as he walked over the advisability of making a fresh start. It would not be a bad idea. But first he must concentrate his energies on recovering what he had lost.
He found the house in the High Street without a great deal of difficulty, for he had marked the spot carefully as far as that had been possible in the fog.
The door was opened to him, not by the old man with whom he had exchanged amenities on the previous night, but by a short, thick fellow, who looked exactly like a picture of a loafer from the pages of a comic journal. He eyed Fenn with what might have been meant for an inquiring look. To Fenn it seemed merely menacing.
"Wodyer want?" he asked, abruptly.
Eckleton was not a great distance from London, and, as a consequence, many of London's choicest blackguards migrated there from time to time. During the hopping season, and while the local races were on, one might meet with two Cockney twangs for every country accent.
"I want to see the old gentleman who lives here," said Fenn.
"Wot old gentleman?"
"I'm afraid I don't know his name. Is this a home for old gentlemen? If you'll bring out all you've got, I'll find my one."
"Wodyer want see the old gentleman for?"
"To ask for my cap. I left it here last night."
"Oh, yer left it 'ere last night! Well, yer cawn't see 'im."
"Not from here, no," agreed Fenn. "Being only eyes, you see," he quoted happily, "my wision's limited. But if you wouldn't mind moving out of the way—"
"Yer cawn't see 'im. Blimey, 'ow much more of it, I should like to know. Gerroutovit, cawn't yer! You and yer caps."
And he added a searching expletive by way of concluding the sentence fittingly. After which he slipped back and slammed the door, leaving Fenn waiting outside like the Peri at the gate of Paradise.
His resemblance to the Peri ceased after the first quarter of a minute. That lady, we read, took her expulsion lying down. Fenn was more vigorous. He seized the knocker, and banged lustily on the door. He had given up all hope of getting back the cap. All he wanted was to get the doorkeeper out into the open again, when he would proceed to show him, to the best of his ability, what was what. It would not be the first time he had taken on a gentleman of the same class and a similar type of conversation.
But the man refused to be drawn. For all the reply Fenn's knocking produced, the house might have been empty. At last, having tired his wrist and collected a small crowd of Young Eckleton, who looked as if they expected him to proceed to further efforts for their amusement, he gave it up, and retired down the High Street with what dignity he could command—which, as he was followed for the first fifty yards by the silent but obviously expectant youths, was not a great deal.
They left him, disappointed, near the Town Hall, and Fenn continued on his way alone. The window of the grocer's shop, with its tins of preserved apricots and pots of jam, recalled to his mind what he had forgotten, that the food at Kay's, though it might be wholesome (which he doubted), was undeniably plain, and, secondly, that he had run out of jam. Now that he was here he might as well supply that deficiency.
Now it chanced that Master Wren, of Kay's, was down town—without leave, as was his habit—on an errand of a very similar nature. Walton had found that he, like Fenn, lacked those luxuries of life which are so much more necessary than necessities, and, being unable to go himself, owing to the unfortunate accident of being kept in by his form-master, had asked Wren to go for him. Wren's visit to the grocer's was just ending when Fenn's began.
They met in the doorway.
Wren looked embarrassed, and nearly dropped a pot of honey, which he secured low down after the manner of a catch in the slips. Fenn, on the other hand, took no notice of his fellow-Kayite, but walked on into the shop and began to inspect the tins of biscuits which were stacked on the floor by the counter.