“Oh, it has been brought up-stairs all right. The old woman would see to that,” he said.
“Then where is it?” I inquired. “I want my night-shirt now.”
“It is probably in the locker room,” replied my chum, “shall I ask Smiley to let us go and see?”
“Do, if you don’t mind,” said I; and Tom, whisking down the room in a somewhat negligé costume, readily obtained the requisite “permit of search.” He then beckoned me to follow him towards a second door communicating from the dormitory with a smaller apartment beyond, whose sides, I observed on entering within, were buttressed from floor to ceiling with a series of diminutive square wooden chests, ranged along the walls on top of one another, like the deed boxes noticeable in the private office of a solicitor in large practice, and all numbered in similar fashion, seriatim, with large black figures on their front faces.
“Every boy has one of these lockers to stow his traps in,” explained Tom, “and Smiley said you could have 31, next to mine, which is 30—just in the same way, old fellow, as our beds are alongside—good of him, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I replied, “he seems a kind chap.”
“He is,” said Tom; “but, come, Martin, if your box is here you’d better bundle in your things at once, and leave it out on the landing for the old woman to take down again to the cellar, where all our trunks and such-like are kept.”
My box was soon found; and my scanty wardrobe being quickly removed to the numbered receptacle allotted to me, Tom and I returned to the dormitory, where, as I had taken care to bring back with me the garment I required for present exigencies, we both soon made an end of our toilets and jumped into our respective beds.
I had expected that as soon as all the boys were under the sheets, the mathematical master would have left the room; but, no, “Smiley,” much to my surprise, proceeded to undress, and occupy a large bed at the end of the dormitory close to the entrance.
Under these circumstances, therefore, instead of the row that would otherwise have gone on, in the absence of any presiding genius of order, the room was soon hushed in quiet repose; and, the last thing I can recollect hearing, ere dropping to sleep, after wishing Tom a sotto voce “good night,” was the sound of the many-voiced sea as the waves whispered to each other on the beach—the gentle lullaby noise it made, to the fancy of my cockney ears, exactly resembling that created by the distant traffic of the London streets in the early hours of the morning to those living within the city radius.