ch they were so fundamentally
divorced.

"Whitey," said Gordon, "was in an awful wax!"

"I don't care," said Smith. "I'd just as soon sit here as look on at
that beastly match."

"But why," said Hart, "have we got to do two hours' work?"

"Oh," said Gordon, "he's just in a wax, that's all."

And the matter was not further discussed. At six o'clock the boys
had tea. The cricket match had, of course, resulted in a crushing and
overwhelming defeat for St. James's. The rival eleven had been asked to
tea; there were cherries for tea in their honour.

When Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor entered the dining-room they at once
perceived that an atmosphere of gloom and menacing storm was overhanging
the school. Their spirits had hitherto been unflagging; they sat next to
each other at the tea-table, but no sooner had they sat down than they
were seized by that terrible, uncomfortable feeling so familiar to
schoolboys, that something unpleasant was impending, some crime, some
accusation; some doom, the nature of which they could not guess,
was lying in ambush. This was written on the headmaster's face. The
headmaster sat at a square table in the centre of the dining-room. The
boys sat round on the further side of three tables which formed the
three sides of the square room.

The meal passed in gloomy silence. Gordon, Smith and Hart began a fitful
conversation, but a message was immediately passed up to them from Mr.
Whitehead, who sat at the bottom of one of the tables, to stop talking.
At the end of tea the guests filed out of the room.

The headmaster stood up and rapped on his table with a knife.

"The whole school," he said, "will come to the library in ten minutes'
time."

The boys left the dining-room. They began to whisper to one another with
bated breath. "What's the matter?" And the boys of the second division
shook their heads ominously, and pointing to Gordon, Smith, and Hart,
said: "You're in for it this time!" The boys of the first division were
too important to take any notice of the rest of the school, and retired
to the first division school-room in dignified silence.

Ten minutes later the whole school was assembled in the library, from
which one flight of stairs led to the upper storeys. The staircase was
shrouded from view by a dark curtain hanging from a Gothic arch; it was
through this curtain that the headmaster used dramatically to appear on
important occasions, and it was up this staircase that b