“H-m-m!” said the Captain, throwing himself back in the chair, and smiling; “can't answer off hand. I'm a third year man, and begin to see the other side rather clearer than I did when I was a freshman like you. Three years at Oxford, my boy, will teach you something of what rank and money count for, if they teach you nothing else.”
“Why, here's the Captain singing the same song as Hardy,” thought Tom.
“So you two have to go to the proctor to-morrow?”
“Yes.”
“Shall you go? Drysdale won't.”
“Of course I shall. It seems to me childish not to go; as if I were back in the lower school again. To tell you the truth, the being sent for isn't pleasant; but the other I couldn't stand.”
“Well, I don't feel anything of that sort. But I think you're right on the whole. The chances are that he'll remember your name, and send for you again if you don't go; and then you'll be worse off.”
“You don't think he'll rusticate us, or anything of that sort?” said Tom, who had felt horrible twinges at the Captain's picture of the effects of rustication on ordinary mortals.
“No; not unless he's in a very bad humour. I was caught three times in one night in my freshman's term, and only got an imposition.”
“Then I don't care,” said Tom. “But it's a bore to have been caught in so seedy an affair; if it had been a real good row, one wouldn't have minded so much.”