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As we were doing so the ten o'clock bell rang for morning classes, and we naturally sought the schoolroom, where, with Mr Hashford in the desk, school was assembled just as if nothing had happened. Hawkesbury was the only absentee. I certainly admired Mr Hashford on this occasion. He appeared to be the only person in the room who was not thoroughly uncomfortable.
"Have you heard any more about him?" asked I. "Not a word. He's as close as an owl. Hawkesbury says Hashford told him he came here straight from another school. By the way keep your handkerchief up, man! by the way, when I said he's afraid of no one, he is afraid of Hawkesbury, I fancy. I don't know why " "I don't think I like Hawkesbury, either. He's got such an everlasting grin."
Miss Henniker dogged us wherever we went and whatever we did. She sat and glared at us all breakfast time; she sat and glared at us while Mr Ladislaw, or Mr Hashford, the usher, were drilling Latin grammar and arithmetic into us. She sat and glared while we ate our dinner, and she stood and glared when after school we assembled in the boot-room and prepared to escape to the playground.
Mr Ladislaw, quick! Batchelor and Smith!" We stood motionless, with no spirit left to fly, until the door was opened, and Mr Ladislaw, Miss Henniker, and Mr Hashford, all three, sallied out to capture us.
At last Hawkesbury, the "pet" of the school in other words, the only boy who seemed to get on with Miss Henniker and Mr Ladislaw had walked up to Mr Hashford's desk, where the usher sat in temporary authority, and had said, "Oh, Smith, the new boy, hasn't any paper, Mr Hashford." "No, I was told not to give him any," said the usher, terrified lest the Henniker should return.
I almost made up my mind to ask Mr Hashford or Mr Ladislaw what had become of Smith, but I could not screw my courage up to the pitch. As I was undressing, Hawkesbury came near me and whispered, "Where is Smith?" I vouchsafed no reply. I had been used to give Hawkesbury credit for good intentions, but I had had my confidence shaken by that day's events.
For Mr Hashford had the charge of all detained boys, and he, good-hearted, Henniker-dreading usher that he was, had spent the three days in drilling me hard in decimal fractions; and so well too, that I actually came to enjoy the exercise, and looked upon the "repeating dot" as a positive pastime. Even Miss Henniker could not rob me of that pleasure.
Among them we were dragged back, faint and exhausted, into Stonebridge House, all thoughts of freedom, and London, effectually banished from our heads, and still worse, with the bitter sense of disappointment added to our other miseries. Mr Hashford was set to watch us for the rest of the night in the empty schoolroom. And he had an easy task.
"No, I don't," I said. "What, not know about But I'd better not talk about it. It's not honourable to talk about another boy's affairs." "Hawkesbury," said Mr Hashford at this moment, "don't talk." This was quite a remarkable utterance for the meek and mild Mr Hashford to make in the Henniker's absence, and we all started and looked up in a concerned way, as if he must be unwell.
"Oh!" said I, starting up, "I was talking " "A bad mark to you, Batchelor, for interrupting me, and another for talking. Hawkesbury, a bad mark for talking in class." We were all astonished. We had hitherto looked upon Hawkesbury as a privileged person who might do as he liked, and upon Mr Hashford as a person who had not a soul of his own.
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