Dead silence. The master’s eyes passed rapidly along the forms, but returned evidently baffled.
“I trust I am to understand by your silence that none of you know anything about it. There is no doubt whatever that the guilty person will be found. I do not say that his name is known yet. If he is in this room,”—here he most unjustifiably fixed me with his eye—“he knows as well as I do what will be the consequence to him. Now go to breakfast. I shall have more to say about this matter presently.”
If Dr Plummer had been anxious to save his tea and bread-and-butter from too fierce an inroad he could hardly have selected a better method. Dangerfield College was completely “off its feed” this morning. Indeed, Ramsbottom, the usher, had almost to bully the victuals down the boys’ throats in order to get the meal over. The only boy who made any pretence to an appetite was the Dux, who ate steadily, much to my amazement, in the intervals of the conversation.
“It’s a bit of a go, ain’t it?” observed Dicky Brown, who, despite his educational advantages, could never quite master the politest form of his native tongue.
“Rather,” said I—“awkward for somebody.”
Then, as my eyes fell once more on Tempest, complacently cutting another slice off the loaf, an idea occurred to me.
“You know, Dicky,” said I, feeling that I was walking on thin ice, “I almost fancied I heard a sound of a gun in the night.”
Dicky laughed.
“Trust you for knowing all about a thing after it’s happened. It would have been a rum thing if you hadn’t.”
This was unfeeling of Dicky. I am sure I have never pretended to know as much about anything as he did.