Bunter the Caravanner - Friardale

CHAPTER 30
A PUZZLE
'Is that Quelch?'
'Looks like him.'
'Our jolly old beak again.'
'The esteemed Quelch!'
Billy Bunter blinked up morosely from a chocolate cake. If the
other caravanners found anything pleasing in an unexpected view
of their Greyfriars form-master, Billy Bunter found none
whatever.
'Quelch!' he grunted. 'Where?'
'Just got off that bus.'
'Blow him!' said Bunter.
It was a golden afternoon. The sunshine was more like summer
than spring. It was very pleasant, picnicking under shady
branches. The Greyfriars caravanners were finding life a very
cheerful proposition that afternoon.
They had stopped for tea on a grassy green verge between the
highroad and a park wall. Trees over-topping the wall gave a
grateful shade. They sat on camp stools round a folding-table
that Jervis had set up. On that table was a jug of lemonade, and
a dish piled with the sweet and sticky comestibles that
gladdened the plump heart of William George Bunter.
Jervis, having supplied the wants of his lord and master, and of
the less important members of the party, had gone into the van:
Harry Wharton and Co. idly watched the traffic on the road, as
they sat at lemonade and cakes. Cars whizzed every few minutes:
cycles and motor-cycles buzzed by: pedestrians passed and repassed.
A bus rolled noisily up, and stopped at a little
distance. When it rolled on its way again, the juniors noticed
that a passenger had alighted on the other side of the road, and
was standing there looking across. The lean figure and slightly
crusty countenance were familiar to them. It was Mr. Quelch. And
the gimlet-eyes under the brim of the Homburg hat were fixed on
the picnicking caravanners.
'It's Quelch!' said Bob. 'Spotted us from that bus, and hopped
off to speak to us.'
'Nice of him,' said Nugent, with a grin. 'The nicefulness is
terrific.'
'Shove on your best manners and customs, if he comes across,'
said Bob. 'Must be polite to a beak.'
'Politefulness is the procrastination of princes, as the English
proverb remarks,' agreed the nabob of Bhanipur.
His comrades chuckled at that English proverb. But Billy Bunter
did not chuckle. He frowned with an inimical blink at the lean
figure across the road.
It was rather a surprise to the Co. to see Quelch again.
They were more than twenty miles from Tatham, where they had met
him at the Coach and Horses a couple of days ago. Neither would