III
THE BOY THAT DIDN’T COME
During the first part of the next, the Easter, term the twins were so closely watched that their genius for mischief had small scope. Whereupon the authorities, finding them apparently absorbed in games and the general routine, relaxed their vigilance.
At the beginning of February the weather was mild and pleasant, with just enough rain to keep the footer ground in good order. But at the end of that fickle month there came a frost, the aggravating sort of frost that makes a field too hard for football and yet leads to no skating.
The never long dormant spirit of mischief in the twins awoke.
As usual, it was Peter who began it, though Tod was the innocent first cause.
Just after first lesson, as Tod was hurrying from one classroom to another, he met the principal in the corridor, who bade him ask his form-master to come and speak to him at a quarter past ten. Further down the corridor Tod met his twin, who instantly demanded what the “Pot” wanted, and on being informed, went upon his way.
Peter might have been seen to stop more than one schoolfellow as he went—the corridor was full of boys changing classrooms—and when he reached his own he delivered a message to the effect that the Head would like to see his form-master at ten-fifteen.
Peter’s form-master, familiarly known as “Pig-Face,” from a fancied resemblance to that animal in the matter of nose, is a testy man, much given to abusing his form and to the use of opprobrious epithets seriously reflecting upon the veracity of boys in general; so, on receipt of the Head’s message, he knuckled Peter’s head, called him a “shuffling little beast,” set a complicated sum in discount for his form to wrestle with during his absence, and hurried away, fuming inwardly at the unreason of such a summons in the middle of morning school. When he arrived at the principal’s room he found six other masters also in waiting, but the principal himself was not there.
It happened that that gentleman had met Tod’s form-master three minutes after he had seen Tod, he said what he had to say there and then in the corridor, and dismissed the matter from his mind.
The seven masters waited in a grumpy group for ten good minutes, when, just as they had decided upon immediate departure, the principal himself rushed in and gazed in somewhat indignant astonishment at the assembled multitude.