im.

Scaife pointed out what appeared to be three tall, narrow wardrobes. The
rest of the furniture included three much-battered washstands and chests
of drawers, four Windsor chairs, and a square table, covered with
innumerable inkstains and roughly-carved names.

"The beds let down," Scaife said, "and during the first school the maids
make them, and shut them up again. It is considered a joke to crawl into
another fellow's room at night, and shut him up. You find yourself
standing upon your head in the dark, choking. It is a joke--for the
other fellow."

"Did some one do that to you?" asked John.

"Yes; a big lout in the Third Fifth," Scaife smiled grimly.

"And what did you do?"

"I waited for him next day with a cricket stump. There was an awful row,
because I let him have it a bit too hard; but I've not been shut up
since. That bed is a beast. It collapses." He chuckled. "Young Kinloch
won't find it quite as soft as the ones at White Ladies. Well, like the
rest of us, he'll have to take Dirty Dick's as he finds it."

The bolt had fallen.

John asked in a quavering voice, "Then it _is_ called that?"

"Called what?"

"This house. Dirty Dick's!"

Scaife smiled cynically. He looked about a year older than John, but he
had the air and manners of a man of the world--so John thought. Also, he
was very good-looking, handsomer than Desmond, and in striking contrast
to that smiling, genial youth, being dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
with strongly-marked features and rather coarse hands and feet.

"Everybody here calls it Dirty Dick's," he replied curtly.

John stared helplessly.

"But," he muttered, "I heard, I was told, that the Manor was the best
house in the school."

"It used to be," Scaife answered. "To-day, it comes jolly near being the
worst. The fellows in other houses are decent; they don't rub it in;
but, between ourselves, the Manor has gone to pot ever since Dirty Dick
took hold of it. Damer's is the swell house now."

John began to unstrap his portmanteau. Scaife puzzled him. For instance,
he displayed no curiosity. He did not put the questions always asked at
a Preparatory School. Without turning his thought into words, John
divined that at Harrow it was bad form to ask questions. As he wanted to
ask a question, a very important question, this enforced silence became
exasperating.

Presently Scaife said, "I suppose you are one of the Claydon lot."

"No; my home is in the New Forest.