'Yes, Sergeant, and their names,' replied the Head.
'No need of that,' muttered our implacable foe. 'I know this here study better nor ever a one in Fernhall.'
'Hales, and you, Winthrop minor, report yourselves to me in my library after morning school to-morrow,' said the Head, and, slowly turning, the great man went, his mortar-board somewhat on one side, while down the long cassock which he wore the streams of coffee ran.
Two minutes after his departure, No. 19, the scene of the fray, was full of friends and of sympathisers.
'You'll get sacked, of course,' remarked one of these, 'but,' he added, 'I don't see that there is anything worse than that which Old Petticoats can do.'
'You don't think he could hang us, for instance, eh, Legs?' asked Snap sarcastically. 'Well, you are a nice, cheerful chap, you are!' he added.
'Never mind, old fellow,' urged another, 'they will give you a good enough character for Sandhurst, and what do you want more?'
'You want a good deal for Sandhurst now, Viper!' replied Snap; 'they'd rather have a blind mathematician than a giant who didn't know what nine times nine is.'
In spite of their comforters our friends felt for at least five minutes that there was something in their world amiss. Then suddenly Snap began to laugh, quite softly and to himself at first, but the laugh was infectious, so that in half a minute every boy in the passage was holding his sides, and laughing until the tears ran down his cheeks. By-and-by inquiries were made for Simpson, who had not been seen since the opening of the door. In answer to the shouts addressed to him, a sepulchral voice replied, and after some search the unfortunate wretch was produced from behind the door, white with fear and tobacco-smoke, flat as a cake of his own beloved honeydew, his knees trembling, and his hair on end with terror. Luckily for him, he had drawn the door back upon himself, and had remained unnoticed behind it ever since.
In spite of the tragedy with which it had begun, the remainder of the evening was spent in adding one more to the works of art which adorn Boot Hall Row, to wit, one life-size portrait of the Very Reverend the Head-master of Fernhall, drawn upon the wall against which he had so recently been flattened, in charcoal, by one Snap Hales; while underneath was written, to instruct future generations: