“Shut up, do you hear? or you’ll catch it!” once more exclaimed Bullinger.
The wretched Simon gave up further attempts to explain himself. Still what he had said, in his blundering way, had been quite enough.
The thing was beyond a doubt; and as the Fifth sat there in judgment, a sense of shame and humiliation came over them, to which many of them were unused.
“I know this,” said Ricketts, giving utterance to what was passing in the minds of nearly all his class-fellows, “I’d sooner have lost the scholarship twenty times over than win it like this.”
“Precious fine glory it will be if we do get it!” said Braddy.
“Unless Wray wins,” suggested Ricketts.
“No such luck as that, I’m afraid,” said Bullinger. “That’s just the worst of it. He’s not only disgraced us, but he’s swindled his best friend. It’s a blackguard shame!” added he, fiercely.
“At any rate, Loman is out of it, from what I hear; he got regularly stuck in the exam.”
“I tell you,” said Ricketts, “I’d sooner have had Loman take the scholarship and our two men nowhere at all, than this.”
There was nothing more than this to be said, assuredly, to prove the disgust of the Fifth at the conduct of their class-fellow.