"Is Trevanock here? Well, Acton wants you now at once in his study."
"Hullo," said Carton, looking up from the sheet of specimens in front of him—"hullo, Diggy! What have you been up to?"
"I haven't been doing anything," answered the other. "What do you think he wants me for?"
"I don't know, but it sounds rather like getting a licking. At all events, you'd better hurry up; prefects don't thank you for keeping them waiting. His is the third door on the right as you go down the passage."
Diggory hastened to obey the summons, wondering what it could mean. He found the door, and in answer to the loud "Come in!" which greeted his knock turned the handle, and found himself for the first time inside one of the Sixth Form studies.
It was a small, square room, and looked very cosy and comfortable with its red window-curtains, well-filled bookshelf, and many little knick-knacks that adorned the walls and mantelpiece. An array of silver cups, several photographs of cricket and football teams, and a miscellaneous pile of bats, fencing-sticks, Indian clubs, etc., standing in one corner, all spoke of the athlete; while carelessly thrown down on the top of a cupboard was an article for the possession of which many a, boy would have bartered the whole of his worldly wealth—a bit of worn blue velvet and the tarnished remnant of what had once been a gold tassel—the "footer cap" of Ronleigh College.
But it was not so much the furniture as the occupants of the study that attracted Diggory's attention. John Acton, a tall, wiry fellow, who looked as though his whole body was as hard and tough as whip-cord, was standing leaning on the end of the mantelpiece talking to another of the seniors, who sat sprawling in a folding-chair on the other side of the fire; while seated at the table, turning over the leaves of what appeared to be a big manuscript book, was no less a personage than Allingford, the school captain.
"I don't understand a bit what's coming to 'Thirsty,'" the football leader was saying. "I was rather chummy with him when we were in the Fifth, and he was all right then, but now he seems to be running to seed as fast as he can; and I believe it's a great deal that fellow Fletcher.—Hullo, youngster! what d'you want?"
"I was told you wanted to see me," said Diggory nervously.
"Oh yes. You were at The Birches, that school near Chatford, weren't you? Well, I want to hear about that love affair my young brother had with the old chap's daughter.—It was an awful joke," added the speaker, addressing his companions. "He was about fourteen, and she's a grown-up woman; and he was awfully gone, I can tell you.—How did he pop the question?"