“I think you were saying precisely that,” was the response of the master. “My ears are quicker than you may fancy, Mr. Yorke. If you really have been hugging yourself with the notion that the promotion will be yours, the sooner you disabuse your mind of it, the better. Whoever gains the seniorship will gain it by priority of right, by scholarship, or by conduct—as the matter may be. Certainly not by anything else. Allow me to recommend you, one and all”—and the master threw his eyes round the desks generally, and gave another emphatic stroke with the cane—“that you concern yourselves with your legitimate business; not with mine.”
Gerald did not like the reproof, or the news. He remained silent and sullen until the conclusion of school, and then went tearing home.
“A pretty block you have made of me!” he uttered, bursting into the presence of Lady Augusta, who had just returned home, and sat fanning herself on a sofa before an open window.
“Why, what has taken you?” returned her ladyship.
“It’s a shame, mother! Filling me up with the news that I was to be senior? And now Pye goes and announces that I’m a fool for supposing so, and that it’s to go in regular rotation.”
“Pye does not mean it,” said my lady. “There, hold your tongue, Gerald. I am too hot to talk.”
“I know that every fellow in the school will have the laugh at me, if I am to be made a block of, like this!” grumbled Gerald.