An immediate change came over Henry. His lips slowly parted in ecstasy. He spoke no word. He looked at the new boy instead with the grateful light of intense relief shining from his eyes, and from that moment their friendship was finally cemented. CHAPTER VII A CABINET MEETING There had not even been a rumour what was wrong. The few who knew had kept their counsel absolutely. For this reason the Rugger meeting came as a mild shock to those gentlemen of high place in the school whose privilege it was to attend it. They were the same counsellors who formed the house committees, and for certain purposes they were on special occasions called together to debate some important matter. Their chief duty this term was, of course, the formal election of the school captain of football, and this had only just been carried out. Ordinarily after this their services were not required. Many of them expected to win their own colours, and it was obviously undesirable for them to sit on the small executive committee that would judge the merits of rivals. Matters pertaining to the First Fifteen, to honours generally, and to the organisation of training throughout the school rested, therefore, with a trio composed of the captain, the honorary secretary and the games master, and of these the captain himself was virtually dictator. That was the custom of the school. House committees were formed on a different basis. Here one found merely the senior boys in each house, though as a matter of course many of these were also leading lights in school sport. They met together as a school committee on almost anything that needed to be discussed: in summer to talk cricket, in winter to plan the broad lines of the season’s football, and sometimes to debate such matters as the Christmas concert or the big cross-country run. To be called together for no apparent reason so soon after they had met came, therefore, as a surprise to them, and they filed into the big room and sat them down in silent dignity. They did not nudge each other or make play with their eyebrows to denote their wonder. They had mostly come to the age when it seems a great thing to pretend one knows something which the next man does not know, and only a man like Toby Nicholson, who knew the type peculiarly well, would have read their casual bearing aright. Their seeming indifference, the way some whistled softly to themselves, the general lack of any evidence of curiosity, denoted an undercurrent that meant sensation. When they were ready Toby rose. He was not at all in love with his task. He was, if anything, a little nervous. He could not tell for a few moments how the school were going to take it. “The day before yesterday,” said he, “you met to elect the captain of football. We have had to call you together again to-day to elect another one. I am sorry to say that the Headmaster does not approve of Rouse as your choice.”