"Go 'way!" cried the Senior Master cheerfully. "You don't know how. You're a perpetual human Roman candle."
"I'll hold him down, sir," said the other boy.
"Pshaw!" cried the Senior Master. "You're a Whiz-bang yourself—go 'long! Shoo!"
The boys went.
At eight, Dick Harrington made his way to the Study to ask the Senior Master whether boys "on probe" could join the triumphal procession. The Senior Master was kindly, but firm.
"Sorry, old man," he said. "Probe rules hold."
That was all. But Dick Harrington without a word went to his room on the third floor of the East Wing, stumbling on the stairs, because of the tears.
Why, he asked himself bitterly again and again—why hadn't he lied?
He crept out of his room an hour later, hearing the cheers of the returning revelers. His hallway was utterly deserted, the school was deserted. If he needed any further evidence that virtue did not pay, here it was. "Be good and you'll be lonesome." There was one aphorism proved, at least.