“Yes, I do,” said Wraysford.
“But the Nightingale, I say?”
“That’s not till Monday.”
“I know; but aren’t you grinding for it? I say, don’t let them beat you! Hadn’t you better work instead of going out?”
Ricketts, by the way, had not done a stroke of work that he could possibly help all the term!
All the other Fifth Form fellows they encountered echoed more or less anxiously the same advice. But the two friends were obdurate. Threats, promises, entreaties, would not put them off their row up the river, and they went on their way, leaving behind them an unusual gloom on the spirits of their dearest friends.
The only person who seemed really glad to see them leaving their work was Bramble. He, with his friend Padger, and a few other irreconcilables, were just returning from a rat-catching expedition, and the sight of the Fifth Form heroes in boating costume filled them with joy.
“Hullo—my eye—hurrah!” shouted Bramble, taking in the situation in a moment. “There they go! I hope they get drowned; don’t you, Padger?”
Padger was understood to assent to this benevolent aspiration.
“Go it. You’ll get the Nightingale! I thought you would! Hope you get drowned, do you hear! Hurrah for the Sixth!”