The Duffer chuckled.

"I say, Caterpillar, that was a good 'un."

"Not mine," said the Caterpillar, solemnly, "My governor's, you know."

The Duffer continued: "Now, Fluff, I won't touch your body, because you
might tumble to pieces, but if I hear you slanging the school or our
house, I'll pull out handfuls of fluff. D'ye hear?"

"Yes," said Fluff, meekly.

"Say '_Floreat Herga_' on your bended knees!"

Fluff obeyed.

"And remember," said the Duffer, impressively, "that we've had a king
here, haven't we, Caterpillar?"

"Yes," said the Caterpillar.

"I never believed it," said Scaife.

"He was a Spaniard,[5] or an Italian, you know," the Duffer explained.
"The duke of something or t'other; and an ambassador came down and
offered the beggar the Spanish crown, when he was in the First Fourth,
and of course he gobbled it--who wouldn't? And then Victor Emmanuel
interfered. That's all true, you can take your Bible oath, because my
governor told me so, and he--well, he's a parson."

"Then it _must_ be true," said Scaife. "Now, young Fluff, don't forget
that Harrow is a school fit for a king and nearer to Heaven than Eton
by at least six hundred feet."

So saying, the Demon marched out of the room, followed by Fluff,
slightly limping.

"Sorry I turfed[6] that little ass so hard," said the Duffer to John.
"I say, Verney, the Demon is rather a rum 'un, ain't he? Sometimes I
can't quite make him out. He's frightfully clever and all that, but I
had a sort of beastly feeling just now that he didn't--eh?--quite mean
what he said. Was he laughin' at _us_, pullin' our legs--what?"

John's brain worked slowly, as he had found out to his cost under a
form-master who maintained that it was no use having a fact stored in
the head unless it slipped readily out of the mouth. The Duffer, who
never thought, because speaking was so much easier, grew impatient at
John's silence.

"Well, you needn't look like an owl, Verney. You know that Scaife's
grandfather was a navvy."

"I don't know," John replied.

"And I don't care," said the Duffer. "Let's go and have some food at
the Creameries."

Looking back afterwards, John often wondered whether, unconsciously,
the Duffer had sown a grain of mustard-seed destined to grow into a
large tree. Or had the intuition that Scaife was other than what he
seemed furnished the fertile soil into which the seed fell? In any
case, from the end of this first week began to incr