“Outside!” “Don’t be an idiot, man. I bagged it first.” “My dear chap, I’ve been waiting here a month.” “When you fellows have quite finished rotting about in front of that bath don’t let me detain yo...

Trevor did not take long to resume a garb of civilisation. He never wasted much time over anything. He was gifted with a boundless energy, which might possibly have made him unpopular had he not justi...

One of the rules that governed the life of Donough O’Hara, the lighthearted descendant of the O’Haras of Castle Taterfields, Co. Clare, Ireland, was “Never refuse the offer of a free tea.” So, on rece...

The team to play in any match was always put upon the notice-board at the foot of the stairs in the senior block a day before the date of the fixture. Both first and second fifteens had matches on the...

Trevor’s first idea was that somebody had sent the letter for a joke⁠—Clowes for choice. He sounded him on the subject after breakfast. “Did you send me that letter?” he inquired, when Clowes came int...

The most immediate effect of telling anybody not to do a thing is to make him do it, in order to assert his independence. Trevor’s first act on receipt of the letter was to include Barry in the team a...

Trevor went and looked. It was rather an interesting sight. An earthquake or a cyclone might have made it a little more picturesque, but not much more. The general effect was not unlike that of an Ame...

Tuesday mornings at Wrykyn were devoted⁠—up to the quarter to eleven interval⁠—to the study of mathematics. That is to say, instead of going to their form-rooms, the various forms visited the out-of-t...

“Ow!” exclaimed the captive, with no uncertain voice. “Let go, you ass, you’re hurting.” The voice was a treble voice. This surprised O’Hara. It looked very much as if he had put up the wrong bird. Fr...

On the evening following O’Hara’s adventure in the vaults, Barry and McTodd were in their study, getting out the tea-things. Most Wrykinians brewed in the winter and Easter terms, when the days were s...

It was something of a consolation to Barry and his friends⁠—at any rate, to Barry and Drummond⁠—that directly after they had been evicted from their study, the house-matches began. Except for the Ript...

Shoeblossom sat disconsolately on the table in the senior day-room. He was not happy in exile. Brewing in the senior day-room was a mere vulgar brawl, lacking all the refining influences of the study....

“With reference to our last communication,” ran the letter⁠—the writer evidently believed in the commercial style⁠—“it may interest you to know that the bat you lost by the statue on the night of the ...

“Suppose,” said Shoeblossom to Barry, as they were walking over to school on the morning following the day on which Milton’s study had passed through the hands of the League, “suppose you thought some...

“I say,” said Clowes, helping him up, “I’m awfully sorry. Did I do it? How did it happen?” Barry was engaged in making various attempts at standing on the injured leg. The process seemed to be painful...

It was a curious thing in connection with the matches between Ripton and Wrykyn, that Ripton always seemed to be the bigger team. They always had a gigantic pack of forwards, who looked capable of sho...

For the next three seconds you could have heard a cannonball drop. And that was equivalent, in the senior day-room at Seymour’s, to a dead silence. Barry stood in the middle of the room leaning on the...

It was Renford’s turn next morning to get up and feed the ferrets. Harvey had done it the day before. Renford was not a youth who enjoyed early rising, but in the cause of the ferrets he would have en...

School prefects at Wrykyn did weekly essays for the headmaster. Those who had got their scholarships at the ’Varsity, or who were going up in the following year, used to take their essays to him after...

Trevor waited till the headmaster had gone back to his library, gave him five minutes to settle down, and then went in. The headmaster looked up inquiringly. “My essay, sir,” said Trevor. “Ah, yes. I ...

“What do you think of that?” said Clowes. Trevor said nothing. He could not quite grasp the situation. It was not only that he had got the idea so firmly into his head that it was Rand-Brown who had s...

Some people in Trevor’s place might have taken the earliest opportunity of confronting Rand-Brown, so as to settle the matter in hand without delay. Trevor thought of doing this, but finally decided t...

The health of Master Harvey of Seymour’s was so delicately constituted that it was an absolute necessity that he should consume one or more hot buns during the quarter of an hour’s interval which spli...

Into the story at this point comes the narrative of Charles Mereweather Cook, aged fourteen, a day-boy. Cook arrived at the school on the tenth of March, at precisely nine o’clock, in a state of excit...