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Skullion sat in front of the gas fire in the Porter’s Lodge and smoked his pipe. His visit to Coft Castle had eased his mind. The General would use his influence to see that the Master didn’t make any changes. You could rely on the General. One of the old brigade, and rich too. The sort that always gave you a big tip at the end of term. Skullion had had some big tips in his time and he had put them all away in his bank with the shares old Lord Wurford had left him in his will and had never touched them. He lived off his salary and what he earned on his night off as a steward at the Fox Club. There had been some big takings there too in his time; the Maharajah of Indpore had once given him fifty quid after a day at the races, when a tip from Sir Cathcart’s stable-boy had paid off. Skullion considered the Maharajah quite a gent, a compliment he paid to few Indians, but then a Maharajah wasn’t a proper Indian, was he? Maharajahs were Princes of the Empire and as far as Skullion was concerned wogs in the Empire were quite different from wogs outside it and wogs in the Fox Club wasn’t wogs at all or they wouldn’t be members. The intricate system of social classification in Skullion’s mind graded everyone. He could place a man within a hair’s breadth in the social scale by the tone of his voice or even the look in his eye. Some people thought you could depend on the cut of a man’s coat but Skullion knew better. It wasn’t externals that mattered, it was something much more indefinable, an i
“Evening, Arthur,” said Skullion condescendingly.
“Evening,” said Arthur.
“Going off home?” Skullion enquired.
“Got something for you,” Arthur told him, leaning confidentially over the counter.
Skullion looked up. Arthur’s attendance at High Table was a source of much of his information about the College. He rose and came over to the counter. “Oh ah,” he said.
“They’re in a tizzwhizz tonight,” Arthur said. “Proper tizzwhizz.”
“Go on,” said Skullion encouragingly.
“Bursar come in to di
Skullion shook his head. “No. What is it?” he said.
Arthur smiled. “Master’s called a College Council for tomorrow. The Bursar said it wasn’t convenient and the Master said to call it just the same and they don’t like it. They don’t like it at all. Put them off their di
“Can’t call a College Council all of a sudden,” Skullion said, “Council meets on the first Thursday of every month.”
“That’s what the Dean said and the Tutor. But the Master wouldn’t have it. Got to be tomorrow. Bursar rang him up and said Dean and Tutor wouldn’t attend like they’d told him and Master said that was all right with him but that the meeting would be tomorrow whether they were there or not.” Arthur shook his head mournfully over the Master’s wilfulness. “It ain’t right all this telling people what to do.”
Skullion scowled at him. “The Master come to di
“No,” said Arthur, “he don’t stir from the Lodge. Just telephones his orders to the Bursar.” He glanced significantly at the switchboard in the corner. Skullion nodded pensively.
“So he’s going ahead with his changes,” he said at last.
“And they thought they’d got him where they wanted him, eh?”
“That’s what they said,” Arthur assured him. “Bursar said he wasn’t going to do nothing and then he suddenly calls the meeting.”
“What’s the Dean say to all this?” Skullion asked.
“Says they’ve all got to stick together. Mind you, he didn’t have much to say tonight. Too upset by the look of him. But that’s what he’s said before.”
“Don’t suppose the Tutor agrees with him,” Skullion suggested.
“He do now. Didn’t before but this being told to attend the meeting has got him on the raw. Don’t like that at all, the Tutor don’t.”
Skullion nodded. “Ah well, that’s something,” he said. “It isn’t like him to side with the Dean. Bursar agree?”
“Bursar says he does but you never can tell with him, can you?” Arthur said. “He’s a slippery sod, he is. One moment this, the next moment something else. You can’t rely on him.”