He walked away, with the water trickling uncomfortably down him inside his clothes and swashing juicily in his shoes.  He liked Scarborough for the way he had acted, but he felt less kindly towards Westby.  He was by no means sure that Westby had not deliberately soused him and then pretended it was an accident.  He remembered Westby’s mirthful laugh just when the thing was happening; and certainly if it had really been an accident Westby had shown very little concern.  He had been indecently amused; he was so still; his clear joyous laugh was ringing after Irving even now, and Irving felt angrily that he was at this moment a ridiculous figure.  To be running home drenched!—­probably it would have been better if he had done what Scarborough had suggested, less undignified, more manly really.  But he couldn’t turn back now.

He was cold and his teeth had begun to chatter, so he started to run.  He hoped that when he came out of the woods he might be fortunate enough to elude observation on the way to the Upper School, but in this he was disappointed.  As he jogged by the Study building, with his clothes jouncing and slapping heavily upon his shoulders, out came the rector and met him face to face.

“Upset canoeing?” asked the rector with a smile.

“Yes,” Irving answered; he stood for a moment awkwardly.

“Well, it will happen sometimes,” said the rector.  “Don’t catch cold.”  And he passed on.

There was some consolation for Irving in this matter-of-fact view.  In the rector’s eyes apparently his dignity had not suffered by the incident.  But when a moment later he passed a group of Fourth Formers and they turned and stared at him, grinning, he felt that his dignity had suffered very much.  He felt that within a short time his misfortune would be the talk of the school.

At supper it was as he expected it would be.  Westby set about airing the story for the benefit of the table, appealing now and then to Irving himself for confirmation of the passages which were least gratifying to Irving’s vanity.  “You did look so woe-begone when you stood up on shore, Mr. Upton,” was the genial statement which Irving especially resented.  To have Westby tell the boys the first day how he had called the new master a new kid and the second day how he had ducked him was a little too much; it seemed to Irving that Westby was slyly amusing himself by undermining his authority.  But the boy’s manner was pleasantly ingratiating always; Irving felt baffled.  Carroll did not help him much towards an interpretation; Carroll sat by self-contained, quietly intelligent, amused.  Irving liked both the boys, and yet as the days passed, he seemed to grow more and more uneasy and anxious in their society.

In the classroom he was holding his own; he was a good mathematical scholar, he prepared the lessons thoroughly, and he found it generally easy to keep order by assigning problems to be worked out in class.  The weather continued good, so that during play time the fellows were out of doors instead of loafing round in dormitory.  They all had their own little affairs to organize; athletic clubs and literary societies held their first meetings; there was a process of general shaking down; and in the interest and industry occasioned by all this, there was not much opportunity or disposition to make trouble.