He had scarcely the spirit to return Riddell’s salute as he seated himself beside him on the bench and waited for what was to come.
“Old fellow,” said Riddell, “don’t look so wretched. Things mayn’t be so bad as you think.”
“How could they be anything else?” said Wyndham, dolefully.
“If you’ll listen to me, and not look so frightfully down,” said the captain, “I’ll tell you.”
Wyndham made a feeble attempt to rouse himself, and turned to hear what the captain had to say.
“You wonder,” said Riddell, “how I came to know about that visit to Beamish’s. Would it astonish you to hear that till this time yesterday I never knew about it at all?”
“What!” exclaimed Wyndham, incredulously; “you were talking to me about it two or three days before.”
“So you thought. You thought when I said it was my duty to report it, and that the honour of the school was involved in it, and all that, that I was talking about that scrape at Beamish’s.”
“Of course you were,” said Wyndham. “What else could you have been talking about? I confessed it to you myself.”
“And you couldn’t see what the honour of the school had to do with your going to Beamish’s, could you?” asked Riddell.