With bland assurance he issued special invitations to all the masters, not excepting Old Man Wykeham himself, and made every preparation for a record "house", firmly believing that only those Foxes who were temporarily in hospital would be absent on this great occasion.
"My main fear is that there won't be seats for all," he confided to his Merry Men, an hour before the commencement. "Some of you chaps had better slip into the corridor and arrange the first comers into a queue, as the policemen do outside the theatres. We don't want a pancake scramble when the doors are opened."
"I'll bob out and see how they're rolling up," said David of Doncaster.
"'Rolling up' is hardly the right term," he reported, when he came back. "There isn't a soul about."
"What!" shouted Robin, disbelieving his ears.
"You could shoot a cannon-ball down the corridor without fear of hitting anybody," Dave declared.
"Rot, Dave! You're an owl—you're a bat—no, you're neither, for you can't see in the dark, you chump. The corridor ought to be packed like a sardine-tin."
"Ought to be, perhaps, but isn't. Go and see for yourself, Robin."
"Doesn't matter—haven't time," said Robin, with dignity. "Don't talk so much, Dave, but freeze on to the other end of this table. Help me to turn it upside down. We don't want any of those beastly Squirms dancing a cellar-flap on it during the performance."
This was no high-class concert hall, where the performers strode elegantly in by the side-door at starting-time. There was hard work for each perspiring member of the troupe.