“None of your cheek, Tom,” said Richardson, “or we’ll have you down here, and pay you out, my boy. Put it on, can’t you? Why don’t you whip the beast up?”
The prospect of coming down to be paid out by his vivacious passengers was sufficiently alarming to Tom to induce him to take their admonition seriously to heart; and for the rest of the journey, although several times business transactions were taking place on the floor of the vehicle, the plodding horse held on its course, and Markridge duly hove in sight.
With the approaching end of the journey, the boys once more became serious and uncomfortable.
“I say,” said Coote, in a whisper, as if Dr Winter, at Templeton, a mile away, were within hearing, “do tell me whose son he was. I’m certain he wasn’t Richard the Third’s. Don’t be a cad, Dick; you might tell a fellow. I’d tell you, if I knew.”
“I’ve told you one father,” said Dick, sternly, “and he didn’t have more. If you want another, stick down Edward the Sixth.”
Coote’s face brightened, as he produced his pencil and cleaned his largest unoccupied nail.
“That sounds more—, Oh, but, I say, how can Edward the Sixth be Edward the Fifth’s father? Besides, he had no family and— Oh, what a howling howler I shall come!”
His friends regarded him sympathetically, and assisted him to dismount.
“We shall have to step out,” said Richardson; “it’s five-and-twenty to ten, and it’s a good mile. Look here, Tom; you’ve got to come and fetch us at the school, do you hear? We’re not going to fag back here after the exam.”
“My orders was to wait here till you pick me up, young gentlemen,” said Tom, grinning. “Mind what you’re up to in them ’saminations.”