“So do I,” said another youth, with his face all over ink. “I mean to fag for him.”
“So do I!” shouted another.
“So do I!” shouted another.
And a general chorus of assent hailed the idea.
“We’ll all fag for him, I vote, eh, Stee?” said Paul, “the whole lot of us! My eye, that’ll be prime! Won’t the others just about look black and blue!”
It was a magnificent idea! And no sooner conceived than executed.
There was a great rush of Guinea-pigs to Oliver’s study. He was not there. So much the better. They would give him a delightful surprise!
So they proceeded straightway to empty his cupboards and drawers, to polish up his cups, to unfold his clothes and fold them again, to take down his books and put them up again, to upset his ink and mop it up with one of his handkerchiefs, to make his tea and spill it on the floor, to dirty his collars with their inky hands, to clean his boots with his hat-brush, and many other thoughtful and friendly acts calculated to make the heart of their hero glad.
In the midst of their orgies, Wraysford and Pembury passed the door, and stopped to look in, wondering what on earth the tumult was about. But they were greeted with such a storm of yells and hisses that they passed on, a little uneasy in their minds as to whether or no hydrophobia had broken out in Saint Dominic’s.
After them a detachment of Tadpoles, headed by Bramble appeared on the scene, for the purpose of mocking. But, whatever their purpose may have been, it was abandoned for more active opposition when Paul presently emptied a tumblerful of lukewarm tea in the face of Master Bramble.