The dormitory monitor was sitting up in bed ready for them, too.
“Oh, you have turned up, have you?” said he. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourselves with Winter in the morning. Most of the fellows say it’s expulsion; but I rather fancy a licking, myself. Cut into bed, and don’t make a noise.”
And he curled himself up in his bedclothes, and slept the sleep of the just, which was more than could be said for the fitful slumbers of our heroes, which visions of Tom White’s boat, and Ponty’s pocket, and the piece of string at the tail of the Eleven’s coach, combined to make the reverse of sound.
In the middle of the night Dick, as he lay awake, felt Heathcote’s hand nudging him.
“I say, Dick!” said the latter, “the wind’s got up. Do you hear it?”
“Shut up, Georgie. I’m just asleep.”
Nemesis handed in her last cheque to our heroes after chapel next morning in the Doctor’s study. I will spare the reader the harrowing details of that serious interview. Suffice it to say that the dormitory fag was right, and that Mrs Partlett was spared the trouble of packing up the two young gentlemen’s wardrobes.
But they emerged from the study wiser and sadder men. They knew more about the properties of a certain flexible wood than they had ever dreamed of before. They also felt themselves marked men in high quarters, with a blot on their new boy’s scutcheon which it would take a heap of virtue to efface.
“By George!” said Dick that afternoon, “we got it hot—too hot, Georgie.”
“I think Winter might have let us down rather easier, myself,” said Georgie.