“No; the cads!” chimed in the other three.
“Tell you what,” said Wally, “it wouldn’t be a bad joke to have a punt-about with their football right under their noses, would it?”
“How if they bag it?”
“Bother!—we must chance that.”
“I say,” said Ashby, “if we could bag their boots first!”
“Can’t do that; but we might wait till they’re in their class after breakfast in the morning. They go in half an hour before us. I know, they all sit near the window, and are squinting out at everybody that passes. Won’t they squirm?”
Next morning therefore at early school, as Percy and Company sat huddled at their desks in the Modern class-room, biting their pens, groaning over their sums, and gazing dismally from the window all at the same time, they had the unspeakable anguish of beholding Wally, D’Arcy, Ashby, and Fisher minor, with their ball, having a ding-dong game of punt-about on the sacred Modern grass, under their very eyes.
How these four enjoyed themselves and kicked about the ball, nodding and kissing their hands all the while at the mortified enemy, who sat like caged beasts glaring at them through their bars, and gnawing their fingers in impotent fury!
Sometimes, to add a little relish to the sport, they invited a passing prefect of their own house to give the ball a punt, and once a neat drop-kick from D’Arcy left a muddy splotch on the face of the sundial above border’s door.
This was too much; and when, a few minutes later, they caught sight of the marauders waving to them and calling attention by pantomimic gesture to the fact that they were carrying off the ball once more to their own quarters, Percy could contain himself no longer.