The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from face to face. Then he said slowly—
"The wretched boy is—drunk!"
At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.
"Who was in your room, Lovell?"
Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn, said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.
"Anybody else, Lovell?"
A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick was the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had quietly left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any cowardly motive, but—as he put it afterwards—"because one makes a point of retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be particular about the company one keeps." It says something for the boy's character, that this statement was accepted by the house as unvarnished truth. Lovell glanced at the other Fifth Form boys, as Rutford repeated the question.
"Anybody else, Lovell? Be careful how you answer me!"
"Nobody else," said Lovell.
"On your honour, sir?"