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All the general public knew was that men with bricks in hods had been seen staggering up the old staircase with its spindle banisters and mahogany rail; that additional operatives had been discovered clinging to the slanting roof long enough to pass up to further experts grouped about the chimneys small rolls of tin and big bundles of shingles; that plasterers in white caps and aprons, with mortar-boards in one hand and trowels in the other, had been seen chinking up cracks; while any number of painters, carpenters, and locksmiths were working away for dear life all over the place from Aunt Jemima's kitchen to Todd's bunk under the roof.
He wandered along the sordid street in which, behind a high wall, lay the red brick house which was the preparatory school. Further on was the gateway that led into King's School, and he stood in the quadrangle round which were the various buildings. It was just four and the boys were hurrying out of school. He saw the masters in their gowns and mortar-boards, and they were strange to him.
They all touched their mortar-boards and he smiled benignly upon them, reserving a rather stern glance for Brockett, the organist, of whose musical eccentricities he did not at all approve. Here, too, are traces of the dormitory and infirmary which formerly stood there.
Then come the men of twenty years ago stately in white gowns and mortar-boards; then the Triennials, with a class boy of two years, costumed in miniature and trundled in a go-cart by a nervous father. The Highlanders stalk by to the skirl of bagpipes with their contingent of tall boys, the coming sons of Alma Mater.
On the other side of the road, in the same row as the Benyon dower-house, but well within sight of the window, was the Mansion-House Collegiate Day and Boarding School for the Sons of Gentlemen. Beth kept looking in that direction, and presently the boys came pouring out in their mortar-boards, and, among them, she soon discovered the one she was thinking of.
After a little turn up with a Judy he was fuller of that spirit of manly fortitude and forbearance so necessary to those whom Fate brought frequently into contact with Mr Dexter. The Judies wore mortar-boards, and it was an enjoyable pastime sending these spinning into space during one of the usual rencontres in the High Street.
There were three of them, and not even the spray which played over them like a fountain could prevent Crowle from seeing that they were manned by Judies. Even on the river these outcasts wore their mortar-boards. "Look out!" shrieked Crowle, pulling hard on his right line. "Stop rowing, you chaps. We shall be into them." At the same moment the School House oarsmen ceased pulling.
They quickly ran up a scaffold, and while some of the scarlet-headed plasterers smeared the walls, others below passed up the tempered mortar on long shell shovels, to the hand mortar-boards. Even at work they had casks and cups of saké at hand, while children played in the empty kegs and licked the gummy sugar left in some of them. "What is that house for?" asked Little Silver of the sailors.
Arthur admired Paul for his strength, Paul admired and gloried in his brother's learning. Never would he forget that commencement-day, when the two boys in their mortar-boards, their beautiful mother between them, arm in arm, walked across the green of the campus. It was an unforgettable picture. Paul was a born-engineer; Arthur had entered the office as a make-shift.
It was Tomlin who, on one occasion, attacked by two terrific champions of St Jude's in a narrow passage, had vanquished them both, and sent their mortar-boards miles into the empyrean, so that they were never the same mortar-boards again, but wore ever after a bruised and draggled look.
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