After the midday dinner, which was greasy and with much too much potato in it, came a visible decline. In the afternoon Mr. Mainwearing would start a class upon some sort of exercises, delegate Probyn to keep order, and retire to slumber in his study; Smithers and Kahn, who both suffered from indigestion, would quarrel bitterly with boys they disliked and inflict punishments; Noakley would sleep quietly through a drawing class on the tacit understanding that there was no audible misbehaviour, and that the boys would awaken him if they heard Mr. Mainwearing coming.
Mr. Mainwearing, when he came, usually came viciously. He would awaken in an evil temper and sit cursing his life for some time before he could rouse himself to a return to duty. He would suddenly become filled with suspicions, about the behaviour of the boys or the worthiness of his assistants. He would take his cane and return with a heavy scowl on his face through the archway to his abandoned class.
He would hear a murmur of disorder, a squeak of “cavé!” and a hush.
Or he would hear Probyn’s loud bellow: “Shut up, young Pyecroft. Shut it, I say!—or I’ll report you!”
He would appear threateningly in the doorway.
“What’s he doing, Probyn?” he would ask. “What’s he doing?”
“Humbugging about, Sir. He’s always humbugging about.”
The diffused wrath of Mr. Mainwearing would gather to a focus. If there were no little beasts like young Pyecroft he wouldn’t be in this infernal, dull, dreary hole of a school.
“I’ll teach you to humbug about, Pyecroft,” he would say. “Come out, Sir!”
“Please, Sir!”