“Ye’ll be comin’ to oor prayer-meetin’ this evenin’?” he said, addressing Benson.
“I don’t know that I shall.”
“But we’ve counted on a discoorse from ye, and I’ve told Mr Campbell that ye’ll tak’ your turn to-night.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure,” replied Benson, nettled, “but I know what I’ve engaged to do, and holding prayer-meetings is not included. You had no authority to tell Mr Campbell anything of the kind.”
“Well, Mr Allister, we’ll just have to ca’ your services into requisition.”
“Ye’ll find me in the office frae nine till five every day. Outside that time I’ll do no wark, unless ye want me to pull a tooth or compound a powder. In these cases I’ll oblige at any hour of the four-an’-twenty.”
Mr Mactavish uttered, with alarming intonation, a sound which cannot be expressed by the whole twenty-six-fold force of the alphabet, but which used to be expressed as “humph!” Then he proceeded to divide the members of the fowls. One of these had been rather more debilitated than the other. The inferior drumsticks were, after the ladies had been helped, duly apportioned to Benson and Allister, respectively. Benson looked up and caught Allister’s eye which was bent on him with great gravity. Then his sense of humour overcame the schoolmaster and he fell into an absolutely uncontrollable fit of laughter.
All proceedings stopped. Miss Mellish glared indignantly at the delinquent; Miss Angus gasped and winked her eyes with hysterical vigour. Allister’s face expressed nothing but sombre surprise; the boarding-master turned purple with inarticulate fury. The contagion of Benson’s laughter spread to the boys; within a few seconds the forms rocked with mirth. Then Mr Mactavish leaped up, seized the smallest boy on the nearest form and dragged him out of the room. Benson, who had regained command of himself under stress of the tragic situation, noticed that the ejected boy had given little or no cause for complaint.
Dinner over, Benson went to his room, threw himself on the bed, and laughed so violently that the room shook. Allister came in, lit his pipe, and regarded his distressed friend with inscrutable gravity.
“Well,” he said, “was I not right?”