“Three-quarters of an hour late for Call-over, and fifteen minutes late for Lock-up,” said Foxy, the school Sergeant, crisply. He was waiting for them at the head of the corridor. “Report to your housemaster, please—an’ a nice mess you’re in, young gentlemen.”
“Quite right, Foxy. Strict attention to dooty does it,” said Corkran. “Now where, if we asked you, would you say that his honour Mister Prout might, at this moment of time, be found prouting—eh?”
“In ’is study—as usual, Mister Corkran. He took Call-over.”
“Hurrah! Luck’s with us all the way. Don’t blub, Foxy. I’m afraid you don’t catch us this time.”
“We went up to change, sir, before comin’ to you. That made us a little late, sir. We weren’t really very late. We were detained—by a——”
“An errand of mercy,” said Beetle, and they laid Mrs. Toowey’s laboriously written note before him. “We thought you’d prefer a letter, sir. Toowey got himself locked into a barn, and we heard him shouting—it’s Toowey who brings the Coll. milk, sir—and we went to let him out.”
“There were ever so many cows waiting to be milked,” said McTurk; “and of course, he couldn’t get at them, sir. They said the door had jammed. There’s his note, sir.”
Mr. Prout read it over thrice. It was perfectly unimpeachable; but it said nothing of a large tea supplied by Mrs. Toowey.
“Well, I don’t like your getting mixed up with farmers and potwallopers. Of course you will not pay any more—er—visits to the Tooweys,” said he.