“He’s such a dodo—he’s more fun than a goat. I can put him up in the air whenever I want to,” boasted Westby. “He’s the easiest to get rattled I ever saw. I’m going to play horse with him in class to-morrow.”
“How?” asked Collingwood; and Irving basely pricked up his ears.
“Oh, you’ll see.”
Irving closed the door of his room quietly. “We’ll see, will we?” he muttered, pacing back and forth. “Yes, I guess some one will see.”
CHAPTER IV
THE BAITING OF A MASTER
The room in which the Sixth Form assembled for the lesson in Geometry was on the top floor of the Study building; the windows overlooked the pond behind the Gymnasium. The teacher’s desk was on a platform in the corner; a blackboard extended along two walls; and there were steps beneath the blackboard on which the students stood to make their demonstrations.
Irving arrived a minute before the hour and found his class already assembled—a suspicious circumstance. There was, too, he felt, an air of subdued, joyous expectancy. He took his seat and, adjusting his spectacles, peered round the room; his eyesight was very bad, and he had, moreover, like so many bookworms, never trained his faculty of observation.