“What a gloomy old piece of rubber the Gumshoe is!” muttered Kit, as they were entering. “Fancy soaking me a pensum two minutes after I’m back at school. Hey, you fellows!” he cried, “what’s this racket?”
A dozen boys started to explain together, so that from their noisy chatter nothing could be gathered, except “Woods,” “caves” and execrations on the Head and the Sixth, with Kit’s lament on the gloomy Mr. Roylston rising above it all like a dismal howl.
A Fourth Form boy,—Barney Clayton, by name,—thrust a red head through the open doorway. “Oh, fy!” he yelled, “what a precious howl you kids are letting out! What’s the matter? does the prohibition against caves rile your independent spirits?”
“Get out, you red-head!” rose in angry chorus; and one boy shied a dog-eared Latin book at the fiery shock in the doorway. In a second a shower of missiles,—ink-stands, books, chairs, waste-paper basket,—went flying through the doorway and out into the corridor. Barney ducked his head and fled, shouting back derisive taunts. The commotion attracted the attention of Mr. Roylston at his post in the main hall, and he came flying to quell the disturbance. And, alas! he arrived just at a moment to receive full in the face the contents of a waste-paper basket, which Kit had flung. The débris descended upon him in comical fashion. The poor gentleman was speechless with indignation; but the situation was too much for the boys; despite his angry countenance, his blazing black eyes, they greeted his appearance with shouts of laughter.
He waited, inarticulate with rage, until the commotion ceased, finally quelling them to a spell-bound silence by the sheer force of his anger, and a little also, by the righteousness of his cause.
“In the whole course of my career as a schoolmaster,” the master said at last, with a nervous jerk to each phrase, but pronouncing each word with the deadly precision of a judge uttering a capital sentence, “I have never been met with such gratuitous insult. Every member of this form will consider himself on bounds until further notice. As for you, Wilson, you shall be reported immediately to the Head, and if my recommendation can effect it, you will receive the caning you deserve.”
“We were not throwing at you—we didn’t know you were coming—” began Kit.
“Silence! do not add hypocrisy to insolence. You had been told to go to your rooms.... Disperse now at once, and do not show yourselves before supper. You Wilson, Lawrence and Deering, remain behind and clean up this disgusting mess. It is not surprising, I may say, that the Head feels himself unable to trust this form in the Woods this winter.” And with this parting shot, Mr. Roylston turned and walked away, with what dignity he could command.
The boys, somewhat subdued by the dispiriting announcement of bounds, marched off gloomily, and our three friends stayed behind and began to clear up the débris.
“Well,” said Kit at last, turning a half-merry, half-rueful countenance to his companions, as he seated himself upon a broken chair, “what a gloomy ass it is! But, oh my dears, did you observe his beautiful pea-green, Nile blue, ultramarine phiz as the contents of the waste-basket descended upon his lean and hairless chops? Oh, my! what a home-coming! what a sweet heart to heart talk we’ve all had together!”