Their spirits had hitherto been unflagging; they sat next to
each other at the tea-table, but no sooner had they sat down than they
were seized by that terrible, uncomfortable feeling so familiar to
schoolboys, that something unpleasant was impending, some crime, some
accusation; some doom, the nature of which they could not guess,
was lying in ambush. This was written on the headmaster's face. The
headmaster sat at a square table in the centre of the dining-room. The
boys sat round on the further side of three tables which formed the
three sides of the square room.
The meal passed in gloomy silence. Gordon, Smith and Hart began a fitful
conversation, but a message was immediately passed up to them from Mr.
Whitehead, who sat at the bottom of one of the tables, to stop talking.
At the end of tea the guests filed out of the room.
The headmaster stood up and rapped on his table with a knife.
"The whole school," he said, "will come to the library in ten minutes'
time."
The boys left the dining-room. They began to whisper to one another with
bated breath. "What's the matter?" And the boys of the second division
shook their heads ominously, and pointing to Gordon, Smith, and Hart,
said: "You're in for it this time!" The boys of the first division were
too important to take any notice of the rest of the school, and retired
to the first division school-room in dignified silence.
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