The Young Desire It by Kenneth Mackenzie Page B

childish top of Waters’s lowered head.
    â€˜Keep them. I don’t want them,’ Waters mumbled kindly, and went on peering at his book. Penworth moved uneasily about, lit a full pipe, and leapt upstairs again with pretentious alacrity. Mr. Jolly, tall, lean and greyer than the shadows, with his nose pointing down like a jester’s finger, waited for him above.
    â€˜Nice crowd, Penworth. Fiends. Horrors. Like a whisky?’
    They went into the Housemaster’s room, which was of the same size as his own, with the furniture placed, of necessity, in the same way. But on the shadowy table a reading lamp shaded with a green shade cast its cool light demurely downwards. In that light the tumblers, the decanter, the frosted soda-siphon looked all more attractive and living than Waters’ plain fare. Penworth thought, I must have a reading lamp.
    â€˜There’s a fellow here the Chief suggested me looking after,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Chap named Fox. Do you happen to have seen him, sir?’
    Mr. Jolly growled at the tilted decanter. ‘Yes. Yes. H’m. Nice little lad. Not so fiendish as most of them seem to be. Damn them. Yes. Fox. A little coward of a fellow, but very friendly. Pretty-faced, you know. That may be why…We shall need to keep an eye on him; that sort can get mucked up fairly easily, in my experience.’
    His bold eyes, that never betrayed the thoughts behind them, moved from the glass in his hand to the pale, sensuous face of the young man, and rested there steadily. They drank their drinks. The cold soda buzzed in Penworth’s throat. Mr. Jolly, humming and growling, raped his dim bookshelves with one majestic glance and remarked that, as it was the first night of renewed purgatory, they had better drink again.
    â€˜How do you think the Chief looks?’ he asked abruptly.
    â€˜Well…he might have had a bit more rest,’ Penworth suggested, as though it were a question.
    â€˜The best Headmaster in this country, my friend. The best—not a doubt of it.’
    This reminded Penworth of those times when he and Waters and the rest of the younger men had discussed the possibility of Mr. Jolly’s appointment as the next Chief. He considered his senior’s exclamation of faith, understanding well that something more than simple charity had made it empty of any tone of hopeful expectation. There was sympathy and superb pity in Mr. Jolly’s voice as he spoke.
    â€˜The best. And you are right, old man—he needs a rest. Did you notice him at supper to-night? Worn out already. Damnable. And the confounded Board…Well, I wonder whom we shall have next, that’s all. I mean to advise him to retire as soon as he feels he may.’
    â€˜I can’t imagine him doing that,’ Penworth said thoughtfully. ‘It means too much to him, being Head in this particular School, seeing every day how much he’s done for it, and what he hopes to do.’
    â€˜Ah yes. He may never feel justified. He may not. But I would’—Mr. Jolly leaned down suddenly and almost took a volume from the massy shelves. ‘I would, I can tell you. God knows…I may even be able to, one day. I hope so. This is no life, my friend.’
    â€˜Why,’ Penworth said with some embarrassment, ‘you might be Head yourself. No one is more suited…’
    â€˜I!’ Mr. Jolly said fiercely, and the rakish lock of hair dashed itself across his left eye against the protuberance of his nose. ‘Why, my dear old chap, I’d no more take on that job than I’d—than I’d burn those books.’ His eyes bulged, turned to the books, and softened passionately. ‘No. Not I.’ He growled a laugh. ‘Don’t you young bloods go getting ideas of that sort.’
    Penworth walked down the aisle between the stark white beds. Laughter, cries, murmurs of familiar talk filled the dormitory. They were getting ready to go