But Mr. Mainwearing did not mean this to be the close of the encounter. He had thought out the problems of discipline according to his lights; a boy must give in. Peter had still to give in.
“And now Stubland,” he proclaimed, “stay in after afternoon school, stay in all tomorrow, and write me out five hundred times, ’I must not sulk. I must obey.’ Five hundred times, Sir.”
Something muffled was audible from Peter, something suggestive of a refusal.
“Bring them to me on Wednesday evening at latest. That will keep you busy—and no time to spare. You hear me, Sir? ’I must not sulk’ and ’I must obey.’ And if they are not ready, Sir, twelve strokes good and full. And every morning until they are ready, twelve strokes. That’s how we do things here. No shirking. Play the fool with me and you pay for it—up to the hilt. This, at any rate, is a school, a school where discipline is respected, whatever queer Socialist Agapemone you may have frequented before. And now I’ve taken you in hand, young man, I mean to go through with you—if you have a hundred uncles Nobchick armed to the teeth. If you have a thousand uncles Nobchick, they won’t help you, if you air your stubborn temper at High Cross School....”
Perhaps Peter would have written the lines, but young Newton, in the company of two friends, came up to him in the playground before dinner. “Going to write those lines, Simon Peter?” asked young Newton.
What could a chap do but say, “No fear.”
“You’ll write ’em all right,” said Newton, and turned scornfully. So Peter sat in the stuffy schoolroom during detention time, and drew pictures of soldiers and battles and adventures and mused and made his plans.
He was going to run away. He was going to run right out of this disgusting place into the world. He would run away tomorrow after the midday meal. It would be the Wednesday half-holiday, and to go off then gave him his very best chance of a start; he might not be missed by any one in particular throughout the afternoon. The gap of time until tea-time seemed to him to be a limitless gap. “Abscond,” said Peter, a beautiful, newly-acquired word. Just exactly whither he wanted to go, he did not know. Vaguely he supposed he would have to go to his Limpsfield aunts, but what he wanted to think he was doing was running away to sea. He was going to run away to sea and meet Nobby very soon; he was going to run against Nobby by the happiest chance, Nobby alone, or perhaps even (this was still dreamier) Daddy and Mummy. Then they would go on explorations together, and he and Nobby would sleep side by side at camp fires amidst the howling of lions. Somewhere upon that expedition he would come upon Mainwearing and Probyn and Newton, captives perhaps in the hands of savages.
What would he and Nobby and Mummy and Daddy and Bungo Peter and Joan do to such miscreants?...
This kept Peter thinking a long time. Because it was beyond the limits of Peter’s generosity just now to spare Mr. Mainwearing. Probyn perhaps. Probyn, penitent to the pitch of tears, might be reduced to the status of a humble fag; even Newton might go on living in some very menial capacity—there could be a dog with the party of which Newton would always go in fear—but Mr. Mainwearing had exceeded the limits of mercy....