Valentine made his way to the head-quarters of the Upper Fourth. The classroom was rather quieter than the one he had left, Mr. Rowlands being somewhat of a martinet.
"All right," said the latter, who was copying a list of questions on the blackboard; "put your note on my table, and I'll attend to you in a moment."
The messenger did as he was told, and stood looking round the room, exchanging nods and winks with one or two members of the upper division with whom he was on friendly terms.
On a form at the back of the room sat three boys who were hardly ever seen apart, and who had apparently formed an alliance for the purpose of idling their time, and mutually assisting one another in getting into scrapes. Their names were Garston, Rosher, and Teal; and seated at the same desk was a boy with whom they seemed to have already struck up an acquaintance, though Valentine did not remember having seen his face before. Even in the Upper Fourth there was a subdued shuffle, showing that work was going rather hard on this first day; and the young gentlemen whose names have just been mentioned were evidently not throwing themselves heart and soul into the subject which was supposed to be occupying their undivided attention.
Mr. Rowlands finished a line, made a full stop with a sharp rap of his chalk, and then turned round sniffing.
"Dear me!" he said, "there's a strong smell of something burning."
"Perhaps it's Jackson's cricket cap," murmured a small boy. Jackson's hair, be it said, was of a fiery red, and hence the suggestion that his head-gear might be smouldering in his pocket.
"What's that?" demanded Mr. Rowlands, and the joker subsided.
Jackson waited until a fresh sentence had been begun on the blackboard; then he dropped a ruler, and in picking it up again smote the small boy on a vulnerable spot beneath the peak of his shell-jacket.
"There is something burning," repeated the master. "Has any one of you boys got matches in his pocket?"