ed themselves along the
wall immediately before the prefects; and the Head called them over,
too--majors, minors, and tertiuses, after their old names.

"Yes, it's all very fine," he said to his guests after dinner, "but the
boys are getting a little out of hand. There will be trouble and sorrow
later, I'm afraid. You'd better turn in early, Crandall. The dormitory
will be sitting up for you. I don't know to what dizzy heights you may
climb in your profession, but I do know you'll never get such absolute
adoration as you're getting now."

"Confound the adoration. I want to finish my cigar, sir."

"It's all pure gold. Go where glory waits, Crandall--minor."

The setting of that apotheosis was a ten-bed attic dormitory,
communicating through doorless openings with three others. The gas
flickered over the raw pine washstands. There was an incessant
whistling of drafts, and outside the naked windows the sea beat on the
Pebbleridge.

"Same old bed--same old mattress, I believe," said Crandall, yawning.
"Same old everything. Oh, but I'm lame! I'd no notion you chaps could
play like this." He caressed a battered shin. "You've given us all
something to remember you by."

It needed a few minutes to put them at their ease; and, in some way they
could not understand, they were more easy when Crandall turned round and
said his prayers--a ceremony he had neglected for some years.

"Oh, I _am_ sorry. I've forgotten to put out the gas."

"Please don't bother," said the prefect of the dormitory. "Worthington
does that."

A nightgowned twelve-year-old, who had been waiting to show off, leaped
from his bed to the bracket and back again, by way of a washstand.

"How d'you manage when he's asleep?" said Crandall, chuckling.

"Shove a cold cleek down his neck."

"It was a wet sponge when I was junior in the dormitory... Hullo! What's
happening?"

The darkness had filled with whispers, the sound of trailing rugs, bare
feet on bare boards, protests, giggles, and threats such as:

"Be quiet, you ass!... Squattez-vous on the floor, then!... I swear you
aren't going to sit on _my_ bed!... Mind the tooth-glass," etc.

"Sta--Corkran said," the prefect began, his tone showing his sense of
Stalky's insolence, "that perhaps you'd tell us about that business with
Duncan's body."

"Yes--yes--yes," ran the keen whispers. "Tell us"

"There's nothing to tell. What on earth are you chaps hoppin' about in
the cold for?"

"Never mind u