"I said some good tugs would get us in, sir," he replied, raising his voice, and pulling paper out of the lock with a buttonhook.
Mr. Cayley, who knew that his ears were as untrustworthy as his eyes, but fondly imagined that his secret was his own, now entered his form-room upon the crest of a boisterous wave composed of his pupils, who, having deposited their preceptor upon his rostrum, settled down in their places with much rattling of desks and banging of books.
Mr. Cayley next proceeded to call for silence, and when he thought he had succeeded, said:
"As our new Latin subject books have not yet been distributed, I shall set you a short passage of unprepared translation this morning."
"Would it not be advisable, sir," suggested the head boy—the Upper Fourth addressed their master with a stilted and pedantic preciosity of language which was an outrageous parody of his own courtly and old-fashioned utterance—"to take down our names and ages, as is usually your custom at the outset of your infernal havers?"
"Of what, Adams?"
"Of your termly labours, sir," said Adams, raising his voice courteously.
Mr. Cayley acquiesced in this proposal, and the form, putting their feet up on convenient ledges and producing refreshment from the secret recesses of their persons, proceeded to crack nuts and jokes, while their instructor laboured with studious politeness to extract from them information as to their initials and length of days. It was not too easy a task, for every boy in the room was conversing, and not necessarily with his next-door neighbour. Once a Liddell and Scott lexicon (medium size) hurtled through space and fell with a crash upon the floor.
Mr. Cayley looked up.
"Someone," he remarked with mild severity, "is throwing india-rubber."