This ended, the boys, with much shuffling of feet on the bare boards composing the floor of the apartment, were about to rush out en masse, when Dr Hellyer arrested the movement.
“Stop!” he cried in stentorian tones, drowning the clatter of feet and whispering of voices; “the pupils will remain in for punishment!”
Every face was turned towards him, with astonishment, expectancy, and dread marked in each feature; and, with a gratified grin on his broad flabby countenance, he remained for a moment or two apparently gloating with gusto over the consternation he had created, amidst a stillness in which you could have heard a pin drop.
After holding all hearts for some time in suspense in this way, glaring round the room with an expression of diabolical amusement, such as a cat may sometimes assume when playing with a mouse before finally putting it out of its misery, Dr Hellyer spoke again. It was to the point.
“Boy Leigh,” he exclaimed, “come here.”
I advanced tremblingly to where he stood. Though I was pretty courageous naturally, his manner was so strange and uncanny that he fairly frightened me.
“What is the matter with your nose?” was his first query, as soon as I had come up close to him, pointing with his fat forefinger at the injured member, which I had vainly thought would have escaped the observation of his keen eye.
“I—I—I’ve hurt it, sir,” said I, in desperation.
“Boy Leigh, you are not truthful,” was his answer to this, shaking the fat forefinger warningly in my face, rather too near to be pleasant. “You’ve been fighting already, and that against my express injunctions; and now, you attempt to conceal the effects of your disobedience by telling a falsehood—worse and worse!”
“I—I really couldn’t help it; it wasn’t my fault, sir,” I pleaded.