who I should shout for."
"Oh, of course, we should all be for Norris, he is such a jolly fellow;
there is no one in the School I would so readily fag for. Instead of
saying, 'Here, you fellow, come and pick up balls,' or, 'Take my bat up
to fields,' he says, 'I say, young Fairlie, I wish you would come and
pick up balls for a bit, and in a quarter of an hour you can call some
other Under School boy to take your place,' just as if it were a favour,
instead of his having the right to put one on if he pleased. I should
like to be his fag: and he never allows any bullying up at Richards'. I
wish we had him at Sargent's."
"Yes, and Barkley is quite a different sort of fellow. I don't know that
he is a bully, but somehow he seems to have a disagreeable way with him,
a cold, nasty, hard sort of way; he walks along as if he never noticed
the existence of an Under School boy, while Norris always has a pleasant
nod for a fellow."
"Here's Litter."
At this moment a door in the wall under the archway opened, and the
head-master appeared. As he came out the five or six small boys standing
round raised a tremendous shout of "Litter's coming." A shout so loud
that it was heard not only in College and the boarding-houses in Little
Dean's Yard, but at Carr's across by the archway, and even at
Sutcliffe's shop outside the Yard, where some of the boys were
purchasing sweets for consumption in school. A fag at the door of each
of the boarding-houses took up the cry, and the boys at once came
pouring out.
The Doctor, as if unconscious of the din raised round him, walked slowly
along half-way to the door of the School; here he was joined by the
other masters, and they stood chatting in a group for about two minutes,
giving ample time for the boys to go up School, though those from
Carr's, having much further to go, had to run for it, and not
unfrequently had to rush past the masters as the latter mounted the wide
stone steps leading up to the School.
The School was a great hall, which gave one the idea that it was almost
coeval with the abbey to which it was attached, although it was not
built until some hundreds of years later. The walls were massive, and of
great height, and were covered from top to bottom with the painted names
of old boys, some of which had been there, as was shown by the dates
under them, close upon a hundred years. The roof was supported on great
beams, and both in its proportions and style the School was
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