They passed once more through the double doors, and were crossing the quadrangle, when a certain incident attracted their notice, unimportant in itself, but indicating a strong contrast in the manner of life at Ronleigh to what they had always been accustomed to at The Birches. A youngster was tearing up a piece of paper and scattering the fragments about on the gravel.
"Hi, you there!" cried a voice; "pick that up. What d'you mean by making that mess here?"
The small boy grabbed up the bits of paper, stuffed them in his pocket, and hurried away towards the schoolroom.
"Is that one of the masters?" asked Mugford.
"No," answered Carton, "that's Oaks; he's one of the prefects.
Don't you see he's got a blue tassel to his mortar-board?"
"But what's a prefect?"
"Whew!" laughed the other, "you'll soon find out if you play the fool, and don't mind what you're about. Why, there are fourteen of them, all fellows in the Sixth, and they keep order and give you lines, and all that sort of thing."
"Why, I thought it was only masters did that," said Jack Vance.
"Well, you'll find the prefects do it here," answered Carton; "and when they tell you to do a thing, I'd advise you to look alive and do it, for they don't reckon to speak twice."
The evening passed quickly enough. After tea came an interview with the head-master in his study, and then what was perhaps a still more trying ordeal—a long spell of sitting in the big schoolroom answering an incessant fire of questions such as, "What's your name?"—"Where d'you come from?" etc., etc.