Chatham Minor was making toast at the fire, careful to burn the slice for Treviss just so, while not scorching Lanyon’s one whit.  Randall poured himself another cup of tea, and offered biscuits from the tin he’d brought from home.  Lanyon looked inside, and selected a digestive.  Not that there was much choice.  This late in the term, the tin was down to the last layer.
“So, what about Hazell?” Treviss asked.  “Don’t get me wrong:  I don’t particularly care if the silly bugger is sent up to Jeep—”  He broke off, mindful of the open ears of the fag.  “Jepson,” he amended.  “Which is what is going to happen if Peters makes a formal complaint.  Which will happen if he misses Games one more time.  He’s no good at footer, can’t hit a ball—liability on the field anyway you look at it (and I wouldn’t mind if he frowsted in the library all year, if it meant he took any care of his studies, either); but Rules are Rules, and Games are required, even of hopeless types like that.”
“Took care of it,” said Lanyon laconically, around a mouthful of digestive.
“You sure?”
There was a moment’s thoughtful consideration; then Lanyon grudgingly conceded that Treviss had a point, Hazell being what he was.
“He needs a good thrashing,” said Grey.  “I know he’s old for it; but he’s an idiot, and I can’t think of anything else that’ll get through to him.”
Treviss, who was no fool, looked sideways at Lanyon.  “You’ve been making a bit of a project of Hazell all term,” he said.  “Jepson been at you?”  At the fire, Chatham Minor put a nicely golden slice of toast on a plate warming on the hearth, and began to butter it carefully to the edges, young ears eager for gossip.
“He’s not stupid,” Randall pointed out.  “Hazell, I mean. He’s just … impossible.”  Thoughtfully, he added, “Makes one wonder about Jepson, really … what he’s thinking about.”
“Same as Lanyon, I should think,” said Treviss.  “Take Hazell up, give him some advice, steer him right.  That about it?”  He looked at Lanyon.
“Lost cause,” said Randall.
“He got the thrashing,” said Lanyon simply.  “He was asking for it, as you said.  He thought I wouldn’t; and I had to make it clear:  he’s not that senior; and he doesn’t have privileges.”
“About time.”  Treviss went to pour, only to find the pot nearly drained.  “Hi!” he called, half turning with the pot out.  “Warm the pot!  I want another cup.”
“Yes, Treviss.”  Chatham Minor quickly dashed the knife across the last corner of toast, came over quickly to set the plate down in front of Lanyon, and took the pot back to the fire, where he put the kettle on.
“And don’t let my toast burn quite all to a cinder,” Treviss added, not unamiably, seeing a thread of smoke rise from the bread.
“Yes, Treviss.”  Chatham Minor rescued the toast, pried it off the fork, and began to butter it.  The kettle, returned to the fire, quickly began to bubble again.

There was a knock at the study door.  Rather than disturb themselves to get it, Gray and Randall simply shouted at who ever it was to come in.  A small boy stood there nervously.  “Is Lanyon here?” he asked.  “I’ve a message from Mr Jepson.  He’d like to see him in his study immediately.”
“Yes, all right,” said Lanyon.  “You can go.”
The boy disappeared.  “I wonder what that’s about,” said Randall idly.
“Bit of a nerve, really,” said Grey.  “I mean, he knows this is our time:  can’t he wait?  ‘Immediately’ indeed.  I know he’s our housemaster; but Stuart would never act like that.  He had a decent sense of timing.”
Lanyon finished his cup of tea, and picked up the last corner of toast.  “I should go,” he said.
“No, finish your tea,” Grey said.
Chatham Minor quickly filled the teapot and brought it over.  Treviss picked it up, and poured his second cup.  “Want one?” he asked.
Lanyon shook his head.  “Seriously, I should go.  After all, it could be something important.”  He wedged the last bite of toast in his mouth and headed out.  Behind him, he heard Treviss asking whether his toast was quite cold yet, and the fag’s scurry to fetch it.
The house master’s study was on the ground floor.  As Lanyon turned left at the foot of the stairs and went through the door into the lower hall, he thought he saw movement and turned quickly.  On the landing, Hazell was looking down at him.  He should, Lanyon thought, be in his study or out on the fields; certainly not hanging around the halls.  For a moment, he was tempted to go up and move him on; but Jepson was waiting, and—perhaps realizing he’d been noticed—Hazell disappeared along the upper hall.  Lanyon had no intention of running after him, and let him go.
At the house master’s door, he knocked and entered.
“Ah, Lanyon, there you are,” said Jepson.  “I must speak to you about some serious allegations.”
“What’s happened?”
“Well, that’s what I want to ask you.”  Jepson gave him his serious look.  “I just had young Hazell in here.  Well, not so young as he was, of course; but he does seem quite immature in many ways.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Lanyon, rather less puzzled, for Hazell had been the subject of discussion between them before.
“He came to make a confession, I fear.”
“Another?”  Ever since he’d taken up this Oxford Group thing, Hazell had been ‘confessing’ right, left, and centre.  It was rather a bore.
“Indeed.  This time, however, his confession involves you.”
Lanyon felt chill.  There was so much for Hazell to confess.  Distantly, he heard Jepson go on.
“…to your study, he thought for a lecture on attendance (which would not be unjustified).  And I’m not taking issue with your decision to cane him.  He’s a repeat offender; and a short, sharp shock—or a half a dozen of them—would be quite reasonable, under the circumstances.  There’s nothing there to which I, or any reasonable master, would take exception….”
“Yes,” Lanyon put in, automatically.  “He’s been skiving off Games persistently.  Mr Peters wanted him taught a lesson.”
“Quite.”  Jepson looked at his respected, popular Head of House with an inner confusion.  The confession (if that was the right word) was appalling:  it seemed impossible that it could involve Lanyon.  And, after all, it had come from Hazell, of all people.
Lanyon looked back at him, feigning a slightly perplexed look.  Could this be brazened out by simply ignoring the hint of more to come?
“According to Hazell,” Jepson began, cautiously hedging his words, “you required him to drop his trousers and take the strokes on the bare arse.”
“Not unprecedented,” Lanyon pointed out.  “Especially for someone who’s been asking for … what did you call it?  A ‘short, sharp shock’?”
“Nevertheless, it is a potentially difficult circumstance,” Jepson said.  He was getting that look in his eye; Lanyon recognized it.  “Capable of misconstruction, by those inclined in a certain way.  If you take my drift.”
“I have said before that Hazell is a trying student to have at any school,” said Lanyon.  He was beginning to suspect the nature of the younger boy’s confession.  Well, the whole nasty business might have been unexpected by Hazell, too.  (It might have been the chaplain, thought Lanyon.  Or matron, even.)
“Or perhaps tempting?” said Jepson, obliquely.  “Especially when in such a position.”
This was obscure.  Lanyon frowned.
“Do I have to make myself plain?” Jepson said, irritably.  He did not in the least like having to state an accusation like this in blunt English.  “Hazell accuses you of enjoying his punishment.”
“Enjoy?” Lanyon said blankly.  “One takes some pleasure, I suppose, in doing one’s duty.”
“Are you admitting it?”
“I’m sorry, sir?” said Lanyon, puzzled.
“So you should be.  Flogging a boy may be necessary; but one should not enjoy it—especially not in that way!”  Jepson’s face twisted in a grimace of distaste.
Light dawned:  Hazell had ‘confessed’ indeed.  And so he had found a way to ‘make Ralph sorry’, as he had promised.
“Do you have anything to say?”
What could he say?  If Lanyon denied the story, then it would simply be his word against Hazell’s.  It occurred to him with relief that, other things being equal, their respective reputations would weigh on his own side.  Nevertheless, one had to consider Jepson’s character:  his lectures on vice; and the zeal with which he delivered them.  Indeed, when one thought about it, Jepson would, in all fairness, have to investigate the matter.  Lanyon’s friends would be interrogated.  Anyone in the House might be required to account for himself, as Jepson sought the “truth”.  It would create an almighty stink—one that could hardly redound to the credit of either House or School, especially if it arrived (as it would certainly arrive, if only at term’s end) at the ears of parents.
If nothing else, he knew himself guilty of initiating the chain of events.  He could not let that chain lengthen—not if it were to be the School that would hang by it.
“No, sir,” he said, finally.  “There really is nothing I can say at this point, is there?”