“I must speak to Mr. Cleaver. . . .” He didn’t say what he must speak about. “All right—get along with you.” He left them, walking away with his hands joined behind his back supporting an immense flounce of black silk gown. Edwin scrambled over the fence; his hands, as they clutched the top of it, were trembling violently. “Well, you are a prize liar,” said Widdup, “and the old man believed every word of it.” “I know,” said Edwin. “That’s the rotten part of it. . . .” “What on earth do you mean?” “Oh, I don’t know. . . .” He knew perfectly well what he meant. “Who won?” “Airs and Graces.” “Then you’ve won the sweep.” “Yes.” Ten minutes later he was back in Mr. Cleaver’s classroom trying to make himself so inconspicuous that he wouldn’t be called upon to make an exhibition of himself, and, as luck would have it, nothing of any difficulty came his way to drag him from his comfortable obscurity. Even though the intense excitement of his adventure had now faded, the atmosphere of that high room had changed. He felt that he didn’t somehow belong to it; or, rather, that he had left something behind. All through that drowsy hour some part of him was still being hurried over the hot downs, swept along in the sweating crowds of the racecourse, and this circumstance made his present life strangely unreal, as though he were a changeling with whom it had nothing in common. Gradually, very gradually, the old conditions reasserted themselves, but it was not until the insistent discipline of the evening service in chapel had dragged him back into normality that his adventure and the influence of the strange people with whom he had rubbed shoulders began to fade. Widdup, with his unblushing admiration, helped. There was no shutting him up. “Well, you have a nerve,” he said. “I wonder what you’ll do next. . . .” “Oh, stow it,” said Edwin. “I’ve finished with that sort of thing. I’m not cut out for a blood.” “I can’t think how you did it.” “Neither can I. It was damned silly of me. I just wanted to satisfy myself that . . . that I had some guts, you know. I didn’t really care what you chaps thought about it. It was sort of private. . .” CHAPTER VI THUNDER WEATHER I THAT night a thrilled but incredulous dormitory discussed the exploit of Ingleby. Without pretending to have approached the dizzy achievements of Griffin, Edwin perceived that in addition to reassuring himself he had managed to atone for a little of his former reputation. He found himself treated with something that was almost respect, partly for the daring of the whole expedition, but even more for the crowning achievement of his inspired lie. “I wish you hadn’t told them that,” he said to Widdup. “Why not?” said Widdup. “That was the best part of it.” “I don’t think so. I don’t mind telling a lie, but it’s rotten if the chap you tell it to believes you.”