The forms passed on in their usual order, and the new boys were conducted to a vacant classroom, where they received a set of examination papers which were intended to test the amount of their knowledge, and determine the position in which they were to start work on the following day.
Jack Vance, Diggory, and Mugford sat together at the first desk, just in front of the master's table, and were soon busy in proving their previous acquaintance with the Latin grammar. Presently the door opened, and a voice, which they at once recognized as Dr. Denson's, said, "Mr. Ellesby, may I trouble you to step here for a moment?" None of the trio raised their eyes from their work. There was a muttered conversation in the passage, and then the door was once more closed.
The master returned to his desk, dipped his pen in the ink, and addressing some one at the back of the room, inquired,—
"What did Dr. Denson say your name was?"
"Noaks, sir."
The Triple Alliance gave a simultaneous start as though they had received an electric shock, and their heads turned round like three weathercocks.
There, sure enough, at the back desk of all, sat the late leader of the Philistines, with a rather sheepish expression on his face, somewhat similar to the one it had worn when the marauders from Horace House had been ushered into Mr. Welsby's study.
Jack Vance looked at Mugford, and Mugford looked at Diggory. "Well, I'm jiggered!" whispered the latter, and once more returned to his examination paper.
At eleven o'clock there was a quarter of an hour's interval. Being still, as it were, strangers in a strange land, the three friends kept pretty close together. They were walking arm in arm about the quadrangle, giving expression to their astonishment at this latest arrival at Ronleigh, when Diggory suddenly exclaimed, "Look out! here he comes!"
After so many encounters of a decidedly hostile nature, it was difficult to meet their old enemy on neutral ground without some feeling of embarrassment. Young Noaks, however, walked up cool as a cucumber, and holding out his hand said,—