“You hear! They are calling you ‘tell-tale.’ That will be your name now. Oh, Holt! You should not have told tales. However, I will stand by you,” Hugh continued, seeing the terror that Holt was in.
“I meant no harm,” said Holt, trembling. “Was not it a shame that they would not let us learn our lessons?”
“Yes, it was—but—”
At this moment Mr Tooke entered the room. As he passed the forms, the boys were all bent over their books, as if they could think of nothing else. Mr Tooke walked up the room to his desk, and Mr Carnaby walked down the room to his desk; and then Mr Carnaby said, quite aloud,—
“Mr Tooke, sir.”
“Well.”
Here Holt sprang from his desk, and ran to the usher, and besought him not to say a word about what Warner’s class had been doing. He even hung on Mr Carnaby’s arm in entreaty; but Mr Carnaby shook him off, and commanded him back to his seat. Then the whole school heard Mr Tooke told about the wry faces and the mask, and the trouble of the little boys. Mr Tooke was not often angry; but when he was, his face grew white, and his lips trembled. His face was white now. He stood up, and called before him the little boy who had informed. Hugh chose to go with Holt, though Holt had not gone up with him about the letter, the other day; and Holt felt how kind this was. Mr Tooke desired to know who the offenders were; and as they were named, he called to them to stand up in their places. Then came the sentence. Mr Tooke would never forgive advantage being taken of his absence. If there were boys who could not be trusted while his back was turned, they must be made to remember him when he was out of sight, by punishment. Page must remain in school after hours, to learn twenty lines of Virgil; Davison twenty; Tooke forty—
Here everybody looked round to see how Tooke bore his father being so angry with him.
“Please, sir,” cried one boy, “I saw little Proctor throw a sponge at Tooke. He did it twice.”
“Never mind!” answered Tooke. “I threw it at him first. It is my sponge.”