Roar. “Don’t bandy words with me, you little Hound! Come out, I say!”
“Please——!” Young Pyecroft would come out slowly and weeping. Mr. Mainwearing would grip him hungrily.
“I’ll teach you to humbug about. (Cut.) I’ll teach you! (Cut.) I can’t leave this class-room for a moment but half a dozen of you must go turning it upside down.” (Cut.)
“Wow!”
“Don’t answer me, Sir!” (Cut.) “Don’t answer me.” (Cut.) “Now, Sir?”
Pyecroft completely subdued. Pyecroft relinquished.
“Now, are there any more of you?” asked Mr. Mainwearing, feeling a little better.
Then he would hesitate. Should he take the set work at once, or should he steal upstairs on tiptoe to catch out one of the assistants? His practice varied. He always suspected Noakley of his afternoon sleep, and was never able to catch him. Noakley slept with the class-room door slightly open. His boys could hear the opening of the class-room door downstairs. When they did they would smack down a book upon the desk close beside him, and Noakley would start teaching instantly like an automaton that has just been released. He didn’t take a second to awaken, so that he was very hard indeed to catch.
The school remained a scene of jaded activities until four, when a bell rang for afternoon prayers under Mr. Mainwearing in the main schoolroom. Then the boys would sing a hymn while Kahn accompanied on a small harmonium that stood in the corner of the room. While prayers were going on a certain scattered minority of the boys were speculating whether Kahn or Smithers would remember this or that task that had been imposed in a moment of passion, weighing whether it was safer to obey or forget. Kahn and Smithers would return to the class-rooms reluctantly to gather in the harvest of their own wrath, but now for a little time Noakley was free to do nothing. Noakley hardly ever imposed punishments. When he was spoken to upon the subject he would put his nose down in a thoughtful manner and reply in a tone of mild observation: “The boys, they seem to mind me somehow.”
Meanwhile the released boys dispersed to loaf about the playground and the outhouses and playing-field until tea at five. Sometimes there was a hectic attempt at cricket or football in the field in which Mr. Mainwearing participated, and then tea was at half-past five. When Mr. Mainwearing participated he liked to bat, and he did not like to be bowled out. Noakley was vaguely supposed to superintend tea and evening prep., and the boys, after a supper of milk and biscuits, were packed off to bed at half-past eight. It was much too early to send the bigger boys to bed, but “Good God!” said Mr. Mainwearing; “am I to have no peace in my day?” And he tried to ease his conscience about what might go on in the dormitories after bedtime by directing Noakley to “exercise a general supervision,” and by occasionally stealing upstairs in his socks.