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Ward entered the room; but the sprightly Tinkleby, who seemed to have undertaken the combined duties of president, secretary, and treasurer, hurried through it somehow; and each week the box grew heavier, and the hearts of the contributors lighter as they looked forward to the time when they should sit down to the long-expected banquet.
"Look here, Tinkleby, we don't want any more of your silly foolery, so just stop it." "My dear sir, I'm doing nothing." "Well, why did you begin?" "If you mean my having dropped off to sleep, I'm very sorry; but really there's something in the air of the place " "Haw-r-r-r-r-ratch," interposed Jack Fenleigh. Redbrook rose from his chair, boiling with wrath. "Just clear out!" he cried.
"Yes," added Dorris, "and so you want to get off Saturday 'prep. Fire away, Tinky, I'm with you." That very afternoon Tinkleby addressed a large, square envelope to S. R. HENINGSON, Esq., Hon. Sec. Melchester School Debating Society.
And Bri tons never, never, ne ver shall be Mar ri ed to a mer mai ed At the bottom of the deep blue sea!" The song was received with great enthusiasm, and the performers might have been kept repeating the last chorus until break of day on the following morning, it Tinkleby had not suddenly jumped up, crying, "I say, you chaps, it's five-and-twenty past seven. We shall be late for lock-up."
Jack smiled as there flashed across his mind the memory of the literary society's supper; the faces of the sprightly Tinkleby, Preston the bowler, "Guzzling Jimmy," and a host of others, rose before him in the deepening twilight. They had been good comrades together once; most of them had probably made a fair start by this time in various walks of life.
The nasal concert continued, and the chairman smote his hand-bell. "Firs' bell," murmured Tinkleby drowsily, "stop working;" while Dorris became suddenly afflicted with a catch in his breath which caused a succession of terrific snorts, each of which nearly cracked the windows. "Here, stop that noise!" cried Redbrook, springing to his feet in great wrath. "Wake 'em up, somebody!"
An obliging member caught Tinkleby by the arm, and gave him a prodigious shake. "Shur up," growled that gentleman. "Give me back my pillow, 'tisn't time to ger up. Hallo! have I been asleep? I'm beastly sorry." One by one the other occupants of the visitors' gallery were made to understand that they were not in their beds.
"Ah!" answered Tinkleby, adjusting his nippers, "but, don't you see, I should do it in this way I should propose that our society be amalgamated with theirs." "What society?" asked Preston the bowler. "Why, the Fifth Form Literary Society, you blockhead!" Preston and Dorris both exploded.
The visitors sat as mute as mummies, and the opener sought to justify his proposition by launching out into an impassioned discourse, which seemed rather inclined to resolve itself into a brief history of the world, and which the critical Tinkleby afterwards described as containing "more wind than argument."
"You seem to think," continued Tinkleby, with a cynical smile, "that the only use for our society is to provide us with an excuse for having a feed once a year at 'Duster's; but let me remind you, sir, that its main object, according to the original rules, was the cultivation of a taste for literary pursuits among its members."
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