"Then," said the skipper, "you'll get somebody else in the place of me. It was a good deal nicer the last time I was nibbled by a ferret, and I'm not going home with hydrophobia to please any of you."
After this there was silence whilst the footsteps grew nearer, and presently the assistant master came into the room.
"You are all here?" he said as he swept his glance from bed to bed.
Then he gave a little sigh of relief, for he had a good deal to do that night, and they were all there, and apparently very sleepy, while it was not his fault that he did not see that two of them wore their outdoor clothes under their night gear. Appleby and Niven had business on hand, and they had discovered that with the aid of contributions levied from their comrades it was possible to lay out a suit of clothing that sufficed to pass a hasty inspection on their chairs. Pearson, however, glanced round again, for he had been taught that there was need for greater watchfulness when his charges were unusually quiet, and then turned out the gas.
"Good-night, boys. If there is any breach of rules some of you will not go home to-morrow," he said.
Two minutes later everybody was wide awake again, and a voice was raised in a corner.
"Let's have a court-martial and try Bluey for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman," it said. "You'll be president, Appleby, and we'll make Niven executioner."
"Sorry," said Niven, "but we can't. You see, Appleby and I have got another assize on to-night. We're going to put an habeas corpus on Tileworks Jimmy's duck."
"More fools you!" said Bluey. "I'm sorry, too, because I've a few fixings handy that would double the court-martial up. Anyway, you'll only catch red-hot trouble instead of Jimmy's duck."
"What's that about a duck?" asked a lad who had come up in the middle of the term, and a comrade proceeded to enlighten him.