when you come to think of it. Not sure I sha'n't back him up a bit
this half, and make the chaps do so too. Wonder if he meant all four of
us to come to tea? One cake wouldn't go round. Besides, there's no
saying how that young cad Fisher minor would behave."

This little episode was not without its effect on all the occupants of
Wally's study. For that young gentleman had not the slightest intention
of turning over a new leaf by himself. No, bother it; if he was going
to "back up" Stratton, the other fellows would have to back up too.

His one grief was that the stock of impositions stored up by the
industry of the two new boys would not be likely to be wanted now, which
would be wicked waste. D'Arcy had already occasionally drawn on them,
and one day nearly spoiled the whole arrangement by taking up to Mr
Wakefield fifty lines of Virgil precisely five minutes after they had
been awarded. Fortunately, however, his hands were exceedingly grimy at
the time, so that Mr Wakefield sent him back for ablutions before he
would communicate with him. And in the interval he fortunately
discovered his error, and instead of taking up the imposition with his
clean hands, he delighted the master with a knotty inquiry as to one of
the active tenses of the Latin verb "To be."

However, there was no saying when the imposition? might not come in
useful, and meanwhile Ashby and Fisher minor were taken off the job and
ordered to sit up hard with their work for Stratton.

"You know," said Wally, propounding his scheme of moral reform in a
little preliminary speech, "you kids are not sent up here to waste your
time. No more's D'Arcy."

"How do you know what I was sent up here for?" said D'Arcy. "It wasn't
to hear your jaw."

"Shut up. I've just been having tea with Stratton, and we were talking
about you chaps, him and I--I mean he and _me_."

"You didn't get on to English grammar, did you, while you were about
it?" asked Ashby.

"No. Look here, you chaps, no larks. It would be rather a spree if we
put our back into it this term, wouldn't it?--beastly sell, you know,
for the others; and rather civil to Stratton too, for asking us to tea."

This last argument was more impressive than the first; and the company
said they supposed they might.

"All right--of course we may have to shut off a lark or two, but unless
we stick-- Hullo, I say, look at those Modern chaps down there punting a
football on our side of the path!