can't open it and fold it again to see how many ferulae you
are to get. I won't come back too.

--Yes, said Cecil Thunder, and the prefect of studies was in second of
grammar this morning.

--Let us get up a rebellion, Fleming said. Will we?

All the fellows were silent. The air was very silent and you could hear
the cricket bats but more slowly than before: pick, pock.

Wells asked:

--What is going to be done to them?

--Simon Moonan and Tusker are going to be flogged, Athy said, and the
fellows in the higher line got their choice of flogging or being
expelled.

--And which are they taking? asked the fellow who had spoken first.

--All are taking expulsion except Corrigan, Athy answered. He's going
to be flogged by Mr Gleeson.

--I know why, Cecil Thunder said. He is right and the other fellows
are wrong because a flogging wears off after a bit but a fellow that
has been expelled from college is known all his life on account of it.
Besides Gleeson won't flog him hard.

--It's best of his play not to, Fleming said.

--I wouldn't like to be Simon Moonan and Tusker Cecil Thunder said.
But I don't believe they will be flogged. Perhaps they will be sent up
for twice nine.

--No, no, said Athy. They'll both get it on the vital spot. Wells
rubbed himself and said in a crying voice:

--Please, sir, let me off!

Athy grinned and turned up the sleeves of his jacket, saying:

It can't be helped;
It must be done.
So down with your breeches
And out with your bum.

The fellows laughed; but he felt that they were a little afraid. In the
silence of the soft grey air he heard the cricket bats from here and
from there: pock. That was a sound to hear but if you were hit then you
would feel a pain. The pandybat made a sound too but not like that. The
fellows said it was made of whalebone and leather with lead inside: and
he wondered what was the pain like. There were different kinds of
sounds. A long thin cane would have a high whistling sound and he
wondered what was that pain like. It made him shivery to think of it
and cold: and what Athy said too. But what was there to laugh at in it?
It made him shivery: but that was because you always felt like a shiver
when you let down your trousers. It was the same in the bath when you
undressed yourself. He wondered who had to let them down, the master or
the boy himself. O how could they laugh about it that way?

He looked at Athy's rolled-up sleeves and