Perhaps that was why they were there because it was a place where some
fellows wrote things for cod. But all the same it was queer what Athy
said and the way he said it. It was not a cod because they had run
away. He looked with the others across the playground and began to feel
afraid.
At last Fleming said:
--And we are all to be punished for what other fellows did?
--I won't come back, see if I do, Cecil Thunder said. Three days' silence
in the refectory and sending us up for six and eight every minute.
--Yes, said Wells. And old Barrett has a new way of twisting the note
so that you can't open it and fold it again to see how many ferulae you
are to get. I won't come back too.
--Yes, said Cecil Thunder, and the prefect of studies was in second of
grammar this morning.
--Let us get up a rebellion, Fleming said. Will we?
All the fellows were silent. The air was very silent and you could hear
the cricket bats but more slowly than before: pick, pock.
Wells asked:
--What is going to be done to them?
--Simon Moonan and Tusker are going to be flogged, Athy said, and the
fellows in the higher line got their choice of flogging or being
expelled.
--And which are they taking? asked the fellow who had spoken first.
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