He bowed and walked quietly out of the room, closing the doors
carefully and slowly.
But when he had passed the old servant on the landing and was again in
the low narrow dark corridor he began to walk faster and faster. Faster
and faster he hurried on through the gloom excitedly. He bumped his
elbow against the door at the end and, hurrying down the staircase,
walked quickly through the two corridors and out into the air.
He could hear the cries of the fellows on the playgrounds. He broke
into a run and, running quicker and quicker, ran across the cinderpath
and reached the third line playground, panting.
The fellows had seen him running. They closed round him in a ring,
pushing one against another to hear.
--Tell us! Tell us!
--What did he say?
--Did you go in?
--What did he say?
--Tell us! Tell us!
He told them what he had said and what the rector had said and, when he
had told them, all the fellows flung their caps spinning up into the
air and cried:
--Hurroo!
They caught their caps and sent them up again spinning sky-high and
cried again:
--Hurroo! Hurroo!
They made a cradle of their locked hands and hoisted him up among them
and carried him along till he struggled to get free. And when he had
escaped from them they broke away in all directions, flinging their
caps again into the air and whistling as they went spinning up and
crying:
--Hurroo!
And they gave three groans for Baldyhead Dolan and three cheers for
Conmee and they said he was the decentest rector that was ever in
Clongowes.
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