Ah five of us! Mayn't go on at all for a week, and then
we've got to get your permit. Isn't that what he said, you chaps?"

"Yes," chimed in the "chaps," in injured voices.

"Well, then," said Riddell, "as that is so, I think you can--that is, I
wish just to tell you--you--it mustn't occur again."

"Oh, all right," said Parson, making for the door.

"And I hope," began Riddell--

But what it was he hoped, his youthful audience did not remain to hear.
They had vanished with amazing celerity, and the captain, as he walked
pensively up to the door and shut it, could hear them marching jauntily
down the passage shouting and laughing over their morning's adventures.

A moment's reflection satisfied Riddell that he had been "done" by these
unscrupulous youngsters. He had let them off on their own
representations, and without taking due care to verify their story. And
now it would go out to all Willoughby that the new captain was a fool,
and that any one who liked could be late for call-over if only he had
the ingenuity to concoct a plausible story when he was reported. A nice
beginning this to his new reign! Riddell saw it all clearly now, when
it was too late. Why ever had he not seen it as clearly at the time?

Was it too late? Riddell went to the door again and looked down the
passage. The young malefactors were out of sight, but their footsteps
and voices were still audible. Hadn't he better summon them back? Had
not he better, at any cost to his own pride, own that he had made a
mistake, rather than let the discipline of Willoughby run down?

He took a few hurried steps in the direction of the voices, and was even
making up his mind to run, when it suddenly occurred to him, "What if,
after all, their story _had_ been true, and the calling of them back
should be a greater mistake even than the letting of them off?"

This awkward doubt drove him back once more to his study, where,
shutting the door, he flung himself into his chair in a state of abject
despondency and shame.

Twenty times he determined to go to the doctor at once, and refuse for
an hour longer to play the farce of being captain of Willoughby. And as
often another spirit kept him back, and whispered to him that it was
only the cowards who gave in at a single failure.

From these unpleasant reflections the summons to first school was a
welcome diversion, and he gladly shook off the captain for an hour, and
figured in his more congenial