the end of the term you must each of you lose
your hour's play between twelve and one."

Mr Ashford paused. Perhaps he expected an outburst of gratitude.
Perhaps he didn't exactly know what to say next. In either case, he
found he had made a mistake.

The boys, with an instinct not, certainly, of self-righteousness, but of
common justice, felt that they had had punishment enough already for
their sin. Mr Ashford took no account of those few seconds when the
waggonette was dashing through the gate and reeling to its fall. He
reckoned as nothing the weary jolt home, the indignity of that supper
last night, and the suspense of that early morning. He made no
allowance for an absence of malice in what they had done, and gave them
no credit--although, indeed, neither did they give themselves credit--
for the regret and straightforwardness with which they had confessed it.
He proposed to treat them, the head boys of Mountjoy, as common
delinquents, and punish them as he would punish a cheat, or a bully, or
mutineer.

It wasn't fair--they knew it; and if Ashford didn't know it, too--well,
he ought.

"We'd rather be caned, sir," said Richardson, speaking for all three.

Mr Ashford regarded the speaker with sharp surprise.

"Richardson, kindly remember I am the best judge of what punishment you
deserve."

"It's not fair to keep us in all the term," said Dick, his cheeks
mounting colour with the desperateness of his boldness.

Mr Ashford changed colour, too, but his cheeks turned pale.

"Leave my sight, sir, instantly! How do you dare to use language like
that to me!"

Fortunately for the dignity, as well as for the comfort, of the three
boys, Dick made no attempt to prolong the argument. He turned and left
the room, followed by his two faithful henchmen, little imagining that,
if any one had scored in this unsatisfactory interview, he had.

Don't let the reader imagine that any mystical glory belongs to the
schoolboy who happens to "score one" off his master. If he does it
consciously, the chances are he is a snob for doing it. If he does it
unconsciously, as Dick did here, then the misfortune of the master by no
means means the bliss of the boy.

Dick felt anything but blissful as he stalked moodily to the schoolroom
that morning and growled his injuries to his allies.

But Mr Ashford, as soon as his first burst of temper had evaporated,
like an honest, sensible man, sat down and reviewed the situation;