Wyndham broke out laughing at this point.
“Have you, really?” he exclaimed.
“Well,” continued Telson, too full of his story to heed the interruption, “they stuck Game in the chair, and he made a frightfully rambling speech about you and that boat-race business. He said you knew who the chap was, and were sheltering him and all that, and that you were as bad every bit as if you’d done it yourself, and didn’t care a hang about the honour of the school, and a whole lot of bosh of that sort. We sung out ‘Oh, oh,’ and ‘Question,’ once or twice, but, you know, we were saving ourselves up. So Ashley got up and said he was awfully astonished to hear about it—howling cram, of course, for he knew about it as much as any one did—and he considered it a disgrace to the school, and the only thing to do was to kick you out, and he proposed it.”
“Then the shindy began,” said Parson. “We sent young Lawkins off to tell Crossfield what was going on, and directly Ashley sat down old Telson got up and moved an amendment. They tried to cry him down, but they couldn’t do it, could they?”
“Rather not,” said Telson, proudly. “I stuck there like a leech, and the fellows all yelled too, so that nobody could hear any one speak. We kept on singing out ‘Hole in the corner! Hole in the corner!’ for about twenty minutes, and there weren’t enough of them to turn us out. Then they tried to get round us by being civil, but we were up to that dodge. Parson went on after me, and then old Bosher, and then King, and then Wakefield, and when he’d done I started again.”
“You should have seen how jolly wild they got!” cried Parson. “A lot of the fellows laughed, and joined us too. Old Game and Ashley were regularly mad! They came round and bawled in our ears that they gave us a thousand lines each, and we’d be detained all the rest of the term. But we didn’t hear it; and when they tried to get at us we hit out with rulers, and they couldn’t do it. You never saw such a lark!”
“And presently Crossfield turned up,” said Telson. “My eye! you should have seen how yellow and green they looked when he dropped in and walked up to his usual place! We shut up for a bit as soon as he came—and, you know, I fancy they’d have sooner we kept it up. They were bound to say something when the row stopped. So Game tried to rush the thing through, and get the fellows to vote before Crossfield knew what was up. But he wasn’t to be done that way.”
“‘I didn’t quite hear what the motion was?’ says he, as solemn as a judge.
“‘Oh! it’s about the honour of the school. Riddell—’
“‘Excuse me, Mr Deputy-Chairman and ex-monitor,’ says Crossfield, and there was a regular laugh at that hit, because, of course, Game had no more right in the chair, now he’s not a monitor, than I had. ‘If it’s anything to do with the honour of the school, of course it couldn’t be in better hands than yours, who have summoned the meeting on the sly, and taken such care to select a nice little party!’