"Ragging, I suppose? Why were you out of bed after Lights Out?"
Palmer preserved a discreet silence.
"Anybody else been out of bed?" Loring demanded of the twilit room.
"Say, Loring, I guess this is my funeral," drawled O'Rane in answer. "I opened up his durned head for him."
"I was in it too," said Sinclair.
"So was I."
"So was I."
Loring turned to Palmer. "Put on a dressing-gown and go down to the matron's room. You other fellows—anyone who's been out of bed, put on his trousers and come down to my study. O'Rane and Sinclair, you stay where you are."
On the wholesale execution that followed there is no need to dwell. Castigation in bulk, for some obscure reason, was always known as a 'Regatta' at Melton, and, as Regattas went, this was celebrated on a lavish scale.