“I captured it off someone’s leg, who was under my bed last night,” said Walter, giving it into Harpour’s hand.
“The deuce you did!”
“Yes; and I smacked the fellow with it, as I will do again, if he comes again.”
“The deuce you will! Then take that for your impudence,” said Harpour, intending to bring down the slipper on his shoulder; but Walter dodged down, and parrying the blow with his arm, sent the slipper in a graceful parabola across the wash-hand-stand into Jones’s basin.
“So, so,” said Harpour, “you’re a pretty cool hand, you are! Well, I’ve no time to settle accounts with you now, or I should be late for chapel. But—”
A significant pantomime explained the remainder of the sentence, and then Harpour, standing in his one slipper, hastily adjourned to his toilet. Walter, being dressed in good time, knelt down for a few moments of hearty prayer, helped poor Eden, who was as helpless as though he had been always dressed by a servant, to finish dressing, and ran across the court into the chapel just as the bell stopped. There were still two minutes before the door was shut, and he occupied them by watching the boys as they streamed in, many of them with their waistcoats only half buttoned, and others with the water-drops still dangling from their hastily combed hair. He saw Tracy saunter in very neat, but with a languid air of disapprobation, blushing withal as he entered; Eden, whose large eyes looked bewildered until he caught sight of Walter and sat down beside him; Kenrick, beaming as ever, who nodded to him as he passed by; Henderson, who, notwithstanding the time and place, found opportunity to whisper to him a hope that he had washed his desirable person in clear water; Plumber looking as if his credulity had been gorged beyond endurance; Daubeny, with eyes immovably fixed in the determination to know his lessons that day; and lastly, Harpour, who had just time to scuffle in hot, breathless, and exceedingly untidy, as the chaplain began the opening sentence.
“Where am I to go now?” asked Eden, when chapel was over.
“Well, Eden, I know as little as you. You’d better ask your tutor. Here, Kenrick,” said Walter, “which of those black gowns is Mr Robertson?—this fellow’s tutor and mine.”
Kenrick pointed out one of the masters, to whom Eden went; and then Walter asked, “Where am I to go to Mr Paton’s form?”
“Here, let me lead the victim to the sacrifice,” said Henderson. “O for a wreath of cypress or funeral yew, or—”