Kay

“ I’ll examine the place.’
‘Bah! why, you are growing worse than a child, Kay,’ said the miscreant’s companion, ‘I never heard such improbable ideas to strike a fellow in all my life. Do you think any person could be within here all this time without betraying some signs of terror?’
‘You may laugh at me as much as you like, Blodget,’ returned Kay, ‘but I am generally pretty correct in what I fancy, and I don’t think I shall be far out in this instance. Here goes for to see.’
We must fail here to portray the feelings of our heroine, as the ruffian, Kay, approached the door, and tried it. ”

“ But Kay, snatching a billet out of the pile, placed the log between her two hands, and she squeezed it so that it became a twisted coil.
"O woman," said Kay, "if thou hadst squeezed me thus, none could ever again have set their affections on me. Evil love were this."
They entered the house, and after meat she told them that the maiden Olwen came there every Saturday to wash. They pledged their faith that they would not harm her, and a message was sent to her. ”

“ Kay ventured to remark.
"Anything that will shelter a horse or a chicken is a palace to a Jap, Kay. The furnishings of their houses are few and crude. They rise in the morning, eat, labor, eat, and retire to sleep against another day of toil. They are all growing rich in this valley, but have you seen one of these aliens building a decent home, or laying out a flower garden? Do you see anything inspiring or elevating to our nation due to the influence of such a race?"
"Yonder is a schoolhouse," Mrs. Parker suggested. ”

“ Wayburn, who had accompanied Fenn to the wicket at the beginning of Kay's first innings, had now for his partner one Walton, a large, unpleasant-looking youth, said to be a bit of a bruiser, and known to be a black sheep. He was one of those who made life at Kay's so close an imitation of an Inferno. His cricket was of a rustic order. He hit hard and high. When allowed to do so, he hit often. But, as a rule, he left early, a prey to the slips or deep fields. Today was no exception to that rule.
Kennedy's first ball was straight and medium-paced. ”

“ It was some time before Mr Kay could make himself heard. But after a couple of minutes there was a lull, and the house-master's address began to be audible.
"... unendurable noise. What is the meaning of it? I will not have it. Do you hear? It is disgraceful. Every boy in this room will write me two hundred lines by tomorrow evening. It is abominable, Fenn." He wheeled round towards the head of the house. "Fenn, I am surprised at you standing here and allowing such a disgraceful disturbance to go on. Really, if you cannot keep order better—It is disgraceful, disgraceful." ”

“ You know I didn't want to bag your place as head of the house."
"My dear chap," said Fenn, "don't apologise. You're welcome to it. Being head of Kay's isn't such a soft job that one is keen on sticking to it."
"All the same—" began Kennedy.
"I knew Kay would get at me somehow, of course. I've been wondering how all the holidays. I didn't think of this. Still, I'm jolly glad it's happened. I now retire into private life, and look on. I've taken years off my life sweating to make this house decent, and now I'm going to take a rest and watch you tearing your hair out over the job. ”

“ While he was murmuring words of comfort to her, Pablo got up on his feet and recovered his hat.
"You see," he said to Kay, in a confidential tone, "Don Miguel José Maria Federico Noriaga Farrel loves us. Never no woman those boy kees since hees mother die twenty year before. So Carolina have the great honor like me. Yes!"
"Oh, but you haven't seen him kiss his sweetheart," Kay bantered the old man—and then blushed, in the guilty knowledge that her badinage had really been inspired by a sudden desire to learn whether Don Mike had a sweetheart or not. ”

“ Kay looked down. A lady porcupine, with tiny new quills, was showing recognition, even affection, if such a spiny beast could be said to possess that quality. [160]
Somehow the presence of the beast restored Kay's mind to normal.
"Well, he's left us both in the lurch, Susie," he said. "Good luck to you, beastie, and may you find a secure hiding place until your quills have grown."
rowning men catch at straws. Kay snatched out his watch, and the illuminated dial showed that it was already two quintets past horometer 13. He darted back to the cabin. ”

“ Blackburn's always frightfully bucked when the house does anything. You can do anything you like with him if you lift a cup. I should have thought Kay would have been all right when he saw you knocking up centuries, and getting into the final, and all that sort of thing."
Fenn laughed.
"Kay!" he said. "My dear man, he doesn't know. I don't suppose he's got the remotest idea that we are in the final at all, or, if he has, he doesn't understand what being in the final means."
"But surely he'll be glad if you lick us tomorrow?" asked Kennedy. ”

“ The state of the house now was exactly what it had been under Fenn. When Kennedy had taken over the reins, Kay's had become on the instant twice as bad as it had been before. By his summary treatment of the revolution, he had, so to speak, wiped off this deficit. What he had to do now was to begin to improve things. Kay's was now in its normal state—slack, rowdy in an underhand way, and utterly useless to the school. It was "up to" Kennedy, as they say in America, to start in and make something presentable and useful out of these unpromising materials. ”

“ Unfortunately, a house cannot do very much when it revolts. It can only show its displeasure in little things, and by an increase of rowdiness. This was the line that Kay's took. Fenn became a popular hero. Fags, until he kicked them for it, showed a tendency to cheer him whenever they saw him. Nothing could paint Mr Kay blacker in the eyes of his house, so that Kennedy came in for all the odium. The same fags who had cheered Fenn hooted him on one occasion as he passed the junior dayroom. Kennedy stopped short, went in, and presented each inmate of the room with six cuts with a swagger-stick. ”

“ It came as a complete surprise to everyone. It seemed to knock the bottom out of the whole match. Without Fenn the thing would be a farce. Kay's would have no chance.
"What a worm that man is," said Kennedy. "Do you know, I had a sort of idea Fenn wouldn't last out much longer. Kay's been ragging him all the term. I went round to see him last night, and Kay behaved like a bounder then. I expect Fenn had it out with him when they got indoors. What a beastly shame, though."
"Beastly," agreed Jimmy Silver. "Still, it can't be helped. The sins of the house-master are visited on the house. ”

“ Kay struck in demurely, "that La Questa Valley suffered a slight loss in population a few weeks ago."
Both Farrel and her father favored her with brief, sharp, suspicious glances. "Who was telling you?" the latter demanded.
"Señor Bill Conway."
"He ought to know better than to discuss the Japanese problem with you," Farrel complained, and her father nodded vigorous assent. Kay tilted her adorable nose at them.
"How delightful to have one's intelligence underrated by mere men," she retorted.
"Did Bill Conway indicate the direction of the tide of emigration from La Questa?" ”

“ Fenn had to go over to the gymnasium shortly after this. Jimmy Silver stayed on, talking to Kennedy.
"And bar Kay," said Jimmy, "how do you find the house doing? Any better?"
"Better! It's getting a sort of model establishment. I believe, if we keep pegging away at them, we may win some sort of a cup sooner or later."
"Well, Kay's very nearly won the cricket cup last year. You ought to get it next season, now that you and Fenn are both in the team."
"Oh, I don't know. It'll be a fluke if we do. Still, we're hoping. It isn't every house that's got a county man in it. ”

“ KAY, JOSEPH (1821–1878) , English economist, was born at Salford, Lancashire, on the 27th of February 1821. Educated privately and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1848. He was appointed judge of the Salford Hundred court of record in 1862 and in 1869 was made a queen’s counsel. He is best known for a series of works on the social condition of the poor in France, Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Austria, the materials for which he gathered on a four years’ tour as travelling bachelor of his university. ”

“ He caught sight of Fenn and Kennedy at the gate, and stopped in his stride.
"What are you doing here, Fenn?" he asked, with an abruptness which brought a flush to the latter's face. "Why are you outside the house?"
Kennedy began to understand why it was that his friend felt so strongly on the subject of his house-master. If this was the sort of thing that happened every day, no wonder that there was dissension in the house of Kay. He tried to imagine Blackburn speaking in that way to Jimmy Silver or himself, but his imagination was unequal to the task. ”

“ I'd forgotten Kay's for the moment. Now you mention it, they are rather a crew. But I shouldn't think they'd find it worth while to rot about here. It isn't as if they were on their native heath. People have a prejudice against having their tent-ropes loosed, and they'd get beans if they did anything in that line. ”

“ Who the deuce can it be?’ said Kay.
‘Doubtless one of our fellows,’ said Maretzo.
The man now entered.
‘Well,’ said Kay. ‘I’m the person you asked for.’
The visitor went to the door, and turned the key. He then said, in a low tone, ‘Is your companion to be trusted?’
‘True as steel,’ said Kay.
‘Blodget is in trouble and needs your assistance. He is at Gordon’s house.—Jenkins has informed on him, and he can’t leave the house without almost certain death. He wishes you and a person he called Maretzo, to be there to-night. With your aid he can get off, carrying the lady with him. ”

“ Sir Kay and the Loathly Lady
Suddenly Sir Kay reined up his steed, amazed; his eye had caught the gleam of scarlet under the trees, and [Pg 277] as he looked he became aware of a woman, clad in a dress of finest scarlet, sitting between a holly-tree and an oak. “Good greeting to you, Sir Kay,” said the lady, but the steward was too much amazed to answer. Such a face as that of the lady he had never even imagined, and he took no notice of her salutation. ”

“ Another such defeat, following immediately in the footsteps of the first, and they would begin to ask themselves what was the good of mortifying the flesh simply to get a licking from a scratch team by twenty-four points. Kay's, they would feel, always had got beaten, and they always would, to the end of time. A house that has once got thoroughly slack does not change its views of life in a moment. ”

“ Eleven is good enough for second place in the hundred, don't you think? There are lots of others in the house who can do quite decently on the track, if they try. I've been making strict inquiries. Kay's are hot stuff, Jimmy. Heap big medicine. That's what they are."
"You're a wonderful man, Kennedy," said Jimmy Silver. And he meant it. Kennedy's uphill fight at Kay's had appealed to him strongly. He himself had never known what it meant to have to manage a hostile house. He had stepped into his predecessor's shoes at Blackburn's much as the heir to a throne becomes king. ”

“ Why won't Fenn do? And why me?"
"Well, it's easy to see why they chose you. They reflected that you'd had the advantage of being in Blackburn's with me, and seeing how a house really should be run. Kay wants a head for his house. Off he goes to the Old Man. 'Look here,' he says, 'I want somebody shunted into my happy home, or it'll bust up. And it's no good trying to put me off with an inferior article, because I won't have it. It must be somebody who's been trained from youth up by Silver.' 'Then,' says the Old Man, reflectively, 'you can't do better than take Kennedy. ”

“ James had said, with perfect truth, "to see two chaps like you making idiots of themselves over a house like Kay's. And it's all your fault, too," he had added frankly. "You know jolly well you aren't playing the game. You ought to be backing Kennedy up all the time. Instead of which, you go about trying to look like a Christian martyr—"
"I don't," said Fenn, indignantly.
"Well, like a stuffed frog, then—it's all the same to me. It's perfect rot. If I'm walking with Kennedy, you stalk past as if we'd both got the plague or something. ”

“ But, when Fenn came out of the pavilion with Kennedy and Silver, he found a stirring battle in progress. The members of the other houses who had come to look on at the match stood in knots, and gazed with approval at the efforts of Kay's and Blackburn's juniors to wipe each other off the face of the earth. The air was full of shrill battle-cries, varied now and then by a smack or a thud, as some young but strenuous fist found a billet. The fortune of war seemed to be distributed equally so far, and the combatants were just warming to their work. ”

“ Upon this Percival came very close to Sir Kay and he said: "Thou discourteous tall man; now I tell thee, except that there are so many ladies here present, and one of these a Queen, I would have to do with thee in such a manner as I do not believe would be at all to thy liking. Now, first of all I shall follow yonder uncivil knight and endeavor to avenge this noble Queen for the affront he hath put upon her, and when I have done with him, then will I hope for the time to come in which I shall have to do with thee for laying hands upon this beautiful young lady who was so kind to me just now. ”