Riddell then rose, and his rising was the signal for a great demonstration of party feeling. Parrett’s of course went against him, and a large section of Welch’s, but the schoolhouse, aided by Cusack, Pilbury, and Co., backed him up. He spoke nervously but boldly.

“I am sorry to have to support the motion of Mr Ashley. I agree with him that Willoughby is not what it was, and not what it should be. (Cheers.) And I also agree with him in thinking that the school might have a good deal better captain than it has.” (Cries of “No!” from the schoolhouse.) “However, I do not want to say a word about myself. What I do want to say is this — it’s one thing to discover that we are degenerate, and another to try to put ourselves right again. And are we likely to do that as long as we are all at sixes and sevens, pulling different ways, caring far more about our own gratifications than the good of the whole school? I don’t think so, and I don’t believe Mr Bloomfield does either. Every fellow worth the name of a Willoughbite must be sorry to see things as they are. (Hear, hear.) Why should they remain so? Surely the good of the school is more important than squabbling about who is captain and which is the best house. Of course, we all back up our own house, and, as a Welcher now, I mean to try if our house can’t give a good account of itself before the term’s over. (Loud cheers from Pilbury, Cusack, Philpot, etcetera.) And if each house pulls itself up, not at the expense of a rival house — (Hear, hear) — but for the glory of the school — (Hear, hear) — we shan’t have to complain of Willoughby being degenerate much longer. You remember what old Wyndham said the night before he left. As long as the fellows think first of the school and then of themselves Willoughby will be all right. Depend upon it he was right. We cheered him loud enough then, why not take his advice still?” (Loud cheers.)

This spirited address roused the applause of all the better-minded section, whose cheers were not wholly unmingled with self-reproach. Bloomfield himself, it was plain, felt its force, and as to the more vehement members of Parrett’s, it considerably damped their ardour.

“Old man,” said Fairbairn that evening to his friend the captain, “you struck a really good blow for the school this afternoon. I don’t know how you managed to pitch on just the right thing to say, as you did. Things will come all right, take my word for it. They’re beginning already.”

Alas, there is many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip, as Willoughby had yet to discover.

Things did not mend all at once at Willoughby. No one expected they would. And within a few days after the “debate in Parliament” it seemed as if the school had finally abandoned all ideas of order and discipline.

The reader will remember that more than once mention had been made of an approaching election for the free and enlightened borough of Shellport, which was occupying the attention not only of the town, and of the doctor and his ladies, but also of the boys themselves. And the cheers with which Morrison’s notice of motion, mentioned in the last chapter, was received, showed plainly enough how things were going.

By long tradition Willoughby had been a Whig school. Fellows did not exactly know what Whig meant, but they knew it was the opposite of Tory on one side and Radical on the other, and they went accordingly. On the present occasion, moreover, they had a sort of personal interest in the event, for the Whig candidate, Sir George Pony, had been discovered to be a sort of second uncle a few times removed of Pringle, one of the Parrett’s fags, whereas the Radical, Mr Cheeseman, was a nobody!

For all these reasons Willoughby felt it had a great stake in the contest, and tacitly determined to make its voice heard.

Small election meetings were held by the more enthusiastic politicians of the school, for the purpose of giving vent to their anti-radical sympathies. At these one boy was usually compelled to represent the Whig and another to figure as the unpopular Radical. And the cheering of the one and the hooting of the other was an immense consolation to the young patriots; and when, as usually happened, the meeting proceeded to poll for the candidates, and it was announced that the Whig had got 15,999 votes (there were just 16,000 inhabitants in Shellport), and the Radical only one (polled by himself), the applause would become simply deafening.

Even the seniors, in a more dignified way, took up the Whig cause, and wore the Whig colours; and woe betide the rash boy who sported the opposition badge!

The juniors were hardly the boys to let an occasion like this slip, and many and glorious were the demonstrations in which they engaged. They broke out into a blaze of yellow, and insisted on wearing their colours even in bed. Pringle was a regular hero, and cheered whenever he showed his face; whereas Brown, the town boy, whose father was suspected of being a Radical, was daily and almost hourly mobbed till his life became a burden to him. All other distinctions and quarrels were forgotten in this enthusiastic and glorious outburst of patriotic feeling.

Two days before the election a mass meeting of juniors and Limpets of all houses and ages, summoned by proclamation, was held in a corner of the playground, “to hear addresses by the candidates, and elect a member for Shellport.” Pringle, of course, was to figure as his distant uncle, and upon the unhappy Bosher had fallen the lot of assuming the unpopular role of Mr Cheeseman. The meeting, though only professing to be a juniors’ assembly, attracted a good many seniors also, whose curiosity and sense of humour were by no means disappointed at the proceedings.

The chairman, Parson, standing on the top of two cricket-boxes, with a yellow band round his hat, a yellow rosette on each side of his jacket, and a yellow tie round his neck, said they were met to choose a member, and knew who was their man. (Loud cheers for “Pringle.”) “They didn’t want any Radical cads — (cheers) — and didn’t know what they wanted down here.” (Cheers.) (Bosher: “I don’t want to be a Radical, you know.”) — (Loud cries of “Shut up!” “Turn him out!”) He’d like to know what that young ass Curtis was grinning at? He’d have him turned out if he had any of his cheek. He always suspected Curtis was a Radical. (Curtis: “No, I’m not — I’m for Pony.”) There, he knew he was, because Radicals always told crams! Whereat Parson resumed the level ground. Pringle, who had about as much idea of public speaking as he had of Chinese, was then hoisted up on to the platform amid terrific applause.

He smiled vacantly, and nodded his head, and waved his hand, and occasionally, when he caught sight of some particularly familiar friend, brought it up vertically near his nose.

“Silence! Shut up! Hold your row for Pony!” yelled the chairman.

“Go ahead, Pringle!” cried the candidate’s supporters.

“Speak out!” shouted the crowd.

“All right,” said the unhappy orator, “what have I got to say, though?”

“Oh, anything — fire ahead. Any bosh will do.”

Pringle ruminated a bit, then, impelled to it by the cheers of his audience, he shouted, for lack of anything better to say, all he could remember of his English history lesson of that morning.

“Gentlemen — (cheers) — the first thing Edward III did on ascending the crown — (terrific applause, in which the seniors present joined) — was to behead the two favourite ministers — (prolonged cheers) — of his mother.” (Applause, amidst which Pringle suddenly disappeared from view, and Morrison, the Limpet, mounted the cricket-box. Morrison was a politician after Willoughby’s own heart.)

“I beg to move that Sir George Pony is a fit and proper member for Willoughby,” he screamed. “I think the Radicals ought all to be hung. (Cheers.) They’re worse than the Tories. (Counter-cheers.) One’s about as bad as the other. (United cheers.) We’re all Whigs here. (Applause.) I say down with everybody that isn’t. (Cheers.) If the Radical gets in I don’t mind if the Constitution gets smashed.” (“Nor do we!”) “It will serve them right for allowing the Radicals in.” (Mighty applause.)