At the door of the dormitory stood a tall, cadaverous-looking man of some fifty years or thereabouts whom I had not before seen. To him Tom now briefly introduced me in the most laconic fashion.
“New boy, Mr Smallpage,” he said.
“Oh, new boy—Leigh, I suppose, eh?” replied this gentleman in an absent sort of way—“Is he in your charge, Larkyns?”
“Well, sir,” said Tom, rather at a loss to answer this question, not wishing to tell an untruth and yet desirous for certain reasons that I should be associated with him, “I’ve made friends with him, that’s all.”
“Ah, then, he can have that vacant bed next yours,” decided Mr “Smiley,” kindly, seeing Tom’s drift.
“Thank you, sir,” said my chum in a gleeful tone at having his wish gratified. “Come along with me, Martin, and I will show you your place. Is it not jolly?” he whispered to me as we proceeded up the room along the centre space left vacant between the two rows of beds lining the walls on either side, “why, it’s just the very thing we wanted!”
Tom’s bed and mine were close to one of the windows in the front of the house, which fact delighted me very much, as I thought I should be able to see the sea as soon as I woke in the morning.
My chum, however, threw a damper on this reflection by suggesting that, when the first gong sounded our reveille at six o’clock AM, we should have such sharp work before us to dress and get down to the refectory in the quarter of an hour allowed us for the operation, that unless I wished to lose my breakfast—a dreadful contingency considering the then empty state of my body—I should have precious little time for star-gazing!
Tom’s mention of “shovelling on my clothes,” as he delicately termed the act of dressing, immediately reminded me of my box, which I had quite forgotten all about ever since my leaving it behind me in the little room out of the hall on the termination of my first interview with Dr Hellyer.
“I wonder where it is?” I asked Tom.