“It’s after lock-up, Blaize,” he said. “What are you doing out?”
“Only walking about, sir,” said David.
“Did you know it was after lock-up?”
David looked guilty and shifted from one foot to another.
“Ye-es, sir,” he said.
“Then you will write out two hundred lines of the fourth ‘Æneid’ and bring them to me on Monday evening. I suppose you thought that your heroic performance to-day, that splendid innings of yours which came to an end a little prematurely, perhaps, and the wonderful catch you so nearly held, entitled you to place yourself above school-rules.”
This was excellent Duttonese, cutting and insulting, and impossible to answer without risk of further penalties for insolence. For the moment David’s face went crimson with anger, and Mr. Dutton rejoiced in his mean heart, and proceeded to pile up irony. He had forgotten the pipe in his pocket, the smoke of which curled thinly up. But David had not forgotten it, nor did he fail to see that the Head was coming up across the field towards them with his swift, rocking motion, and a vengeance of a singularly pleasant kind suggested itself to him. Had not Dubs made himself so gratuitously offensive, he would not have dreamed of taking it; if he had even only stopped there, he might not have done so. But the disgusting Dubs, intoxicated with his own eloquence, and rejoicing to see David writhing under it, did not stop.
“It was a grand day for you, was it not?” proceeded this odious man, “with your father to look on, and call out ‘Well played, Blaize’—I beg your pardon, ‘Well played, David.’ And to finish with being late for lock-up is a fine achievement.”
The Head was close to them now, coming up silently, on the grass behind Mr. Dutton. At a few yards distance he joined in the colloquy.
“What is all this? What is all this?” he inquired.