CHAPTER XII
IN THE DORMITORY
By supper time Bobby and Fred knew ten boys to speak to—without counting Jack Jinks, Bill Bronson, and the school captain, Barrymore Gray. The latter they did not see at all again until they beheld him sitting at the doctor's right hand at the head of the "upper table," as they soon learned to call the one around which the head scholars and the assistant master sat with Dr. Raymond. The junior teachers sat at the heads of the other tables and kept order.
Rockledge was divided into the Upper School and the Lower School. Bobby and Fred would of course be in the Lower, but just how they would be placed in classes they would not know until the real business of the school opened on Monday.
The supper was plentiful, but plain. Bobby missed Meena's sweet cakes and hot tea-biscuit, and Fred whispered that there was hayseed in the strawberry jam, so he knew it was not "home made."
Pee Wee sat across the table from them and ate steadily, showing beyond peradventure that his plumpness arose from a very natural cause!
Until eight o'clock the boys were allowed to frolic outside as they wished, no tasks being set them as yet. Bobby noticed that one of the junior teachers was always within sight, while Captain Barry Gray, and some of the older fellows, were grouped on the main steps of the dormitory building, swapping vacation experiences.
Bobby noticed that Barry was always very well dressed—indeed, richly dressed, beside many of the boys—so he made up his mind that the school captain must come from a wealthy home.
Bill Bronson jingled money in his pockets and wore a handsome gold watch and a diamond pin in his tie. Most of the smaller boys, however, were no better dressed than Bobby and Fred.
Taken altogether, the boys who appeared at the supper table were a bright and interesting looking crowd. Bobby was sure he was going to be happy here, and Fred was already on terms of intimacy with half a dozen of the chaps about their own age.