Peter soberly reported the interview to his friends, and they decided to sleep.
Already the zest was beginning to go out of life. A comfortless grey light was beginning to peer dimly at the hanging burden of the trees.
Peter sat wakefully at his window. His revolt against the discipline of Gamaliel came merely to this—that he had removed the trousers of the Junior Prior. He had been noisy and foolish, and it had seemed the best joke in the world that his friends should give the laborious College servants at least an hour's extra work to do in the morning. A large side of bacon hanging grotesquely in the pale light intolerably mocked him from the noble elm beside his window. He felt very old and tired. In the morning he was summoned to the Warden's house. The Warden met him seriously, as though, Peter thought, he instinctively knew how to make him ashamed.
"Well, Mr. Paragon, the property has been identified."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"I, too, am sorry, Mr. Paragon. You are sent down for the remaining days of the term, and I shall seriously have to consider whether I can allow you to come back after the vacation. I suppose you realise that the discipline of the College must be observed?"
"Yes, sir."
"The Junior Prior," the Warden continued with perfect gravity, "has been offered an important post in a Japanese university. Perhaps he will accept it. He desires to study the refraction of light in tropical atmospheres. It may therefore be possible for you to join us again next term. Otherwise I am afraid we shall have to strike you from the books. I think you understand the position, Mr. Paragon?"
"Yes, sir."
Peter cut short his friends when they asked for an account of his roasting.