"Oh, you silly fellows. Then I shall have to put both your papers before the Headmaster. I'm afraid you will both be expelled."
Jenks had a strange notion of the offences that merited expulsion. Every time he reported a boy he expected to see him marching sadly to the station to catch the afternoon train. Once Collins had stuck a pin into a wonderful mercury apparatus and entirely ruined it.
"Oh, Collins, you stupid boy. I shall have to report you to the Headmaster, and you know what that means. We sha'n't see you here any more."
Gordon had, of course, not the slightest fear of getting "bunked." But still it was a nuisance. He would have to be more careful next time.
"Now look here, you two," Jenks went on, after a bit. "If either of you cares to own up, I won't report you at all. I will deal with you myself."
Slowly Gordon rose. It was obviously an occasion where it paid to own up.
"I did, sir."
"Oh I thought as much. You see yours was in pencil, and if possible a little worse than Fletcher's. Sit down."
Betteridge afterwards said that to watch Jenks rushing across the courts to see the Chief during the minute interval between the exit of one class and the arrival of the next was better than any pantomime. He was very small; he had a large white moustache; his gown was too long; it blew out like sails in the wind. Besides, it was the first time Jenks had ever been seen to run.
In due time Caruthers and Fletcher appeared before the Chief. The result was only a long "jaw" and a bad report. The Chief could not perhaps be expected to see that a lie was any the less a lie because it was told to a master. But in the delinquents any feeling of penitence there might have been was entirely obscured by an utter scorn of Jenks.