“No, I’ve been a stroll,” said I. “It’s rather hot walking.”
“I guess it will be hotter before long,” said some one. “Plummer looks as if he means to have it out this afternoon.”
“I hope he won’t go asking any awkward questions,” said Dicky, who had by this time joined us.
“What’s the odds, if you didn’t do it?” demanded the Dux.
“Look out,” said Faulkner; “here he comes. He’s beckoning us in.”
“Now we’re in for it!” thought we all.
Plummer evidently meant business this time. The melancholy ceremony at which he had just assisted had kindled the fires within him, and he sat at his desk glowering as each boy dropped into his place, with the air of a wolf selecting his victim.
As I encountered that awful eye, I found myself secretly wondering whether by any chance I might have shot the dog in a fit of absence of mind. Brown, I think, was troubled by a similar misgiving. Some of the seniors evidently resented the way in which the head master glared at them, and tried to glare back. Faulkner assumed an air of real affliction, presumably for the departed. Tempest, on the other hand, drummed his fingers indifferently on the desk, and looked more than usually bored by the whole business.
“Now, boys,” began Plummer, in the short sharp tones he used to affect when he was wont to administer justice; “about Hector.”
Ah! that fatal name again! It administered a nervous shock all round, and the dead silence which ensued showed that every boy present was alive to the critical nature of the situation.