David Blaize by E. F. Benson

Author:E. F. Benson [Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-20T05:00:00+00:00

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Maddox gave two days’ consideration as to the question of the next step to be taken, and found the rival claims of honour and justice rather hard to reconcile. As far as he himself was concerned, he cared not one farthing what the Remove A would think of him in case, if, as he thought he might have to do, he went to Adams or the Head Master with the information that cribbing was the fashion in that form; but he realised that it would never do if it came out somehow that Bags was the source from whom his information had been derived. Remove A would argue, with irrefutable logic, that somebody must have sneaked, and would take all steps with all the ingenuity that was theirs to find out who had done so. Again, there was David, on whom suspicion might fall. It would be certainly known that Maddox had licked him for cribbing; it would very likely be inferred that he in self-defence (though the self-defence had proved singularly ineffective) had tried to justify himself by saying that the practice was a universal one. And that was precisely what David had refrained from saying; it would be the rankest injustice that he should be executed for cribbing and disgraced by the supposition that he had attempted to justify himself. On the other hand, cribbing was a rotten system, and Maddox intended to do his best to stop it.

It was not easy to decide what to do, and he turned all his acute boyish brain to the solving of the problem, which to him seemed one of the utmost delicacy and importance. It made all the difference to the well-being of the house, which, quite rightly, was to him the world, that Remove A should cease to crib, and that they should be unaware how the news of their habits had come to the authorities. He wanted to take the wisest course, and, had he considered the matter a trivial one, he would have been in his sphere, and for his age, every whit as culpable as the Prime Minister of a State who shrugs his shoulders at some astounding national abuse. It mattered immensely, and, indeed, more than he knew, for the right management of the affairs of such small kingdoms as a house or a form in a public school goes to build up the foundations of the right management of the affairs of big kingdoms. Character and judgment are formed there; a responsible boy takes into the big world exactly that which he has learned in smaller spheres. Maddox, it may be remarked, not being a prig, did not indulge in those edifying reflections, but only said to himself, as he scratched his curly head, “I’m damned if I know what to do!” But his wise boy’s brain worked and explored and burrowed, and two days after he went to his house-master.

“I hate bothering you, sir,” he said, “but I’m in a fix.”

“Cruikshank?” asked Adams, who knew there was not much cordiality lost between the two.

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