We both took off our caps.
“Friends already, eh?” said the Doctor. “History repeats itself, the modern based upon the classic. Quite a young Pylades and Orestes. Well, Burr, have you made acquaintance with all your schoolfellows?”
I turned scarlet, and was at a loss as to what to say. But there was no occasion for me to feel troubled—the Doctor did not want an answer. He nodded pleasantly, the ladies bowed and passed on with him, while Mercer hurried me away.
“What a game!” he said; “and you’ve only made friends with one. I say, poor old Reb’s been fishing all day again for roach, and never caught one. He never does. I wish he’d had the ducking instead of me.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “You don’t.”
“Oh, but I just do,” he said. “I say, let’s go round and see cook.”
“What for?”
“To ask her to dry our clothes for us. This way.” He ran off, and I followed him, to pass through a gate into a paved yard, across which was a sloping-roofed building, at the side of the long schoolroom.
Mercer tapped at a door, and a sharp voice shouted,—
“Come in!”