Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/310

 It was Mr. Haigh, and in an instant Jan saw him redder than Mulberry himself. It was Haigh with a limp collar and a streaming face. So he had smelt a rat, set a watch, and followed the fly on foot like the old athlete that he was! But how much more like him all the rest! Jan not only came tumbling back into school life, as from that other which was to have been his, but back with a thud into the Middle Remove and all its old miseries and animosities.

"I might have known what to expect!" he cried with futile passion. "It's about your form, doing the spy!" Haigh took less notice of this insult than Jan had known him take of a false quantity in school. His only comment was to transfer his attention to Mulberry, who by now had scrambled to his legs. Leaning through the forked tree, the master held out his hand for the stamped envelope, obtained possession of it without a word, and read it as he came round into the open.

"This looks like your writing, Rutter?"

"It is mine."

Jan was still more indignant than abashed.

"May I ask what it refers to?"

"You may ask what you please, Mr. Haigh."

"Come, Rutter! I might have put more awkward questions, I should have thought. Still, as it won't be for me to deal with you for being here, instead of wherever you're supposed to be, I won't press inquiries into the nature of your dealings with this man."

It was Mulberry's turn to burst into the breach; he did so as though it were the ring, dashing his battered hat to the ground with ominous exultation.

"Do you want to know what he's had off me?" he demanded of Haigh. "If he won't tell you, I will!"

Jan's heart sank as he met a leer of vindictive