“Welsher?”
“Clear the course!” “Hurry up for tea there!” and other exclamations of a similar nature.
It was not certainly a very dignified way of accepting a friend’s invitation; still, it would have been worse had I remained in their clutches.
As it was, I only just made the schoolhouse door before Warminster and Coxhead were up to me, and presented myself to my host painfully out of breath and red in the face.
“Been having a trot over?” said he, with a nod.
“Yes, a little,” I gasped.
“I’m ready; come along.”
My heart sunk within me, as, on reaching the door, I saw my five comrades, all apparently by accident, hovering round to see me go out. They did their best, and very successfully too, to stare me out of countenance, and encourage my blushes by allusions to “Sarah” and my tin sleeve-links, and the smudges on my face, and by cries of “shrimps” and “muffins,” and other awkward allusions.
Redwood, as became the cock of the school, affected not to hear their ribald remarks, though he must have caught a word or two, and inquired,—
“Been playing football since you came?”