“Easy?” fumed Arthur; “he might as well have given us a bit of rope a-piece and told us to go and hang ourselves! Look at Ainger; do you suppose he thinks we’ve been let off easy?”
The captain’s face left no doubt on that question.
Chapter Nine.
Ainger has a Crumpet for Tea, and Smedley sings a Song.
Railsford for a brief moment had shared the opinion of his distinguished pupil, that the doctor had let the house off easily. But two minutes’ reflection sufficed to undeceive him. The house was to dine daily at one o’clock in Railsford’s. That meant that they were to be cut off from all association with the rest of the school out of school hours, and that just when all the rest turned out into the playing-fields they were to sit down at their disgraced board. The half-holiday regulation was still worse. For that meant nothing short of the compulsory retirement of his boys from all the clubs, and, as far as athletics went, their total exclusion from every match or contest open to the whole school.
The house was slower at taking in the situation of affairs than the master. With the exception of Ainger, on whom the full significance of the doctor’s sentence had flashed from the first, there was a general feeling of surprise that so big a “row” should be followed by so insignificant a retribution.
“Who cares what time we have dinner,” said Munger to some of his admirers, “as long as we get it after all? Now if old Punch (this was an irreverent corruption of the head-master’s name current in certain sets at Grandcourt)—if old Punch had stopped our grub one day a week—”
“Besides,” broke in another, “we’ll get things hotter than when we dined in hall.”