“Never mind me,” said Dick, getting into bed.
Aspinall did not pursue the topic; but as he lay awake that night, feeling his heart jump at every footstep and word in the room, he made the most desperate and heroic resolves to become a perfect griffin to all Templeton. For all that, he also nearly made up his mind to steal out of bed and peep from the window, to see if there were any possibility of escaping home, while Templeton slept, to Devonshire.
The new boys all obeyed the summons of the half-past-six bell next morning with nervous alacrity. For it was something more than a mere call to shake off “dull sloth”—it was a reminder that they were fags, and that their masters lay in bed depending on them to rouse them in time for morning chapel.
The old fags smiled to see the feverish haste with which the new ones flung themselves into their garments, and started each on his rousing mission. These veterans had had their day of the same sort of thing. Now they knew better, and as long as they could continue occasionally to be found by their seniors with a duster in their hands, or toasting a piece of bread before the fire, the “new brooms” could be left to do all the other work, for which the old ones reaped the credit.
Heathcote, with very dismal forebodings, knocked at Pledge’s door.
“It’s time to get up, please,” said he.
“All right. Fetch me some hot water, will you? and brush my lace boots.”
Heathcote, as he started off to fetch the water, thought that the voice of his new master was certainly not as repulsive as he had been led by his numerous sympathisers to expect.
“However,” said he to himself, “you can’t always judge of a fellow by his voice.”
Which was very true, as he found immediately afterwards, when, as he was kneeling down at the tap, trying to coax the last few drops of hot water into his can, a voice behind him said—