g for him to brag about afterwards,"
continued Saurin. "It would make him look important and influential
that he had got two fellows out of such a row, and was the only one in
the school who could do it."

"It is worth trying at any rate," said Edwards. "Ask him this
afternoon."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A CRIME.

Once every term the cricket and football committees assembled to
transact business. They learned what funds were in hand, what
subscriptions had been paid and what were in arrear, also the
expenditure for balls, nets, goals, stumps, rolling the ground, and all
other items. After which, rules were discussed, and arrangements for
future matches made. It was part of the principle of the school that
the boys should manage all these things for themselves, as it was
considered that to learn practically how to set such matters going and
keep them in order was quite as educational as to acquire the right use
of the subjunctive. All that the authorities had to do with the
arrangement was that when the day and hour for a committee meeting was
fixed, the master in whose house the secretary was, gave leave for his
pupil-room to be used for the occasion; and it was also customary to ask
one of them to audit the accounts. These assemblages were of a twofold
character: during the first part, when the accounts were read out, and
what had been done gone over, any boy who liked might attend and ask
questions. But when arrangements for the future were discussed, the
room was cleared of all but the committee. Experience had brought that
about; for when outsiders had been allowed to remain, the number and
variety of absurd and futile suggestions which were made, prevented any
conclusion being come to at all.

Since Crawley was the secretary and treasurer of both the cricket and
football clubs there was only one general meeting, at which the accounts
of both were taken together, instead of two in the term, as when those
offices were vested in different individuals. Crawley had found these
burdens rather onerous this term; with that stiff examination looming
nearer and nearer every month he began to feel serious, for he had set
his heart upon getting into the artillery if he could, and he was going
at his subjects in downright earnest, with no shirking or trifling when
the humour was not on him. So that the time it took him to prepare
these accounts, and still worse, to collect the subscriptions, he did
rather grudge.