"I tell you what," said Hart, a few moments later: "you new kids may think yourselves lucky that you're in a quiet room for a start. I know when I came first there used to be christenings and all kinds of humbug."

"What was that?" asked Diggory.

"Why, fellows used always to christen you with a nickname: they stuck your head in a basin and poured water over you, and if you struggled you got it all down your back."

"Yes," continued Carton, "and they hid your clothes, and had bull-fights and all sorts of foolery. That was in _Nineteen_: old 'Thirsty' was the prefect for that pa.s.sage, and he doesn't care tu'pence what fellows do.

But Allingford's put a stop to almost all that kind of thing: he's captain of the school, and he's always awfully down on anything of that sort."

By the time breakfast was over on the following morning, Diggory and his two companions were beginning to recover a little from their first state of bewilderment amid their strange surroundings. They donned the school cap of black flannel, with the crest worked in silk upon the front, and went out to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine in the playground.

It was a bright, frosty day, and the whole place seemed full of life and activity. There was plenty to engage their attention, and much that was new and singular after their comparatively quiet playground at The Birches. But whatever there was to awaken their interest out of doors, a thing was destined to happen during their first morning school which would be a still greater surprise than anything they had yet encountered during their short residence at Ronleigh.

At nine o'clock the clanging of the big bell summoned them to the general a.s.sembly in the big schoolroom. They took their places at a back desk pointed out to them by the master on duty, and sat watching the stream of boys that poured in through the open doors, wondering how long it would take them to become acquainted with the names of such a mult.i.tude.

The forms pa.s.sed on in their usual order, and the new boys were conducted to a vacant cla.s.sroom, where they received a set of examination papers which were intended to test the amount of their knowledge, and determine the position in which they were to start work on the following day.

Jack Vance, Diggory, and Mugford sat together at the first desk, just in front of the master's table, and were soon busy in proving their previous acquaintance with the Latin grammar. Presently the door opened, and a voice, which they at once recognized as Dr. Denson's, said, "Mr. Ellesby, may I trouble you to step here for a moment?"

None of the trio raised their eyes from their work. There was a muttered conversation in the pa.s.sage, and then the door was once more closed.

The master returned to his desk, dipped his pen in the ink, and addressing some one at the back of the room, inquired,--

"What did Dr. Denson say your name was?"

"Noaks, sir."

The Triple Alliance gave a simultaneous start as though they had received an electric shock, and their heads turned round like three weatherc.o.c.ks.

There, sure enough, at the back desk of all, sat the late leader of the Philistines, with a rather sheepish expression on his face, somewhat similar to the one it had worn when the marauders from Horace House had been ushered into Mr. Welsby's study.

Jack Vance looked at Mugford, and Mugford looked at Diggory. "Well, I'm jiggered!" whispered the latter, and once more returned to his examination paper.

At eleven o'clock there was a quarter of an hour's interval. Being still, as it were, strangers in a strange land, the three friends kept pretty close together. They were walking arm in arm about the quadrangle, giving expression to their astonishment at this latest arrival at Ronleigh, when Diggory suddenly exclaimed, "Look out! here he comes!"

After so many encounters of a decidedly hostile nature, it was difficult to meet their old enemy on neutral ground without some feeling of embarra.s.sment. Young Noaks, however, walked up cool as a cuc.u.mber, and holding out his hand said,--

"Hullo, you fellows, who'd have thought of seeing you here! How are you?"

The three boys returned the salutation in a manner which, to say the least, was not very cordial, and made some attempt to pa.s.s on their way; but the new-comer refused to see that he was not wanted, and insisted on taking Mugford's arm and accompanying them on their stroll.

"I say," he continued, addressing Jack Vance, "were you at Todderton these holidays? I don't think I saw you once."

"The last time I saw you," returned Jack, in rather a bitter tone, "was when you came to spoil our fireworks, and we collared you in the shed."

Noaks clinched his fist, and for a moment his brow darkened; the next instant, however, he laughed as though the recollection of the incident afforded him an immense amount of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Ha, ha! Yes, awful joke that, wasn't it? almost as good as the time when that fool of a master of yours, Lake, or Blake, or whatever you call him, had me sent off the field so that you could win the match."

"It was no such thing," answered Jack. "You know very well why it was Blake interfered; and he's not a fool, but a jolly good sort."

"Oh, don't get angry," returned the other. "I'm sure I shouldn't fly into a wax if you called Fox or old Phillips a fool. I got sick of that beastly little school, as I expect you did of yours, and so I made my uncle send me here.--Hullo! I suppose that's the bell for going back to work; see you again later on."

"I say," whispered Diggory, as soon as they had regained their seat in the examination-room, "I vote we give that chap the cold shoulder."

The following morning the three friends heard their names read out as forming part of the Third Form, to which their friend Carton already belonged. Young Noaks was placed in the Upper Fourth, and they were not destined therefore to have him as a cla.s.s-mate.

The Third Form at Ronleigh had, for some reason or other, received the t.i.tle of "The Happy Family." They certainly were an amusing lot of little animals, and Diggory and his companions coming into the cla.s.sroom rather late, and before the entrance of the master, saw them for the first time to full advantage. Out of the two-and-twenty juveniles present, only about six seemed to be in their proper places.

One young gentleman sitting close to the blackboard cried, "Powder, sir!" and straightway scrubbed his neighbour's face with a very chalky duster. The latter, by way of retaliation, smote the former's pile of books from the desk on to the ground--a little attention which was immediately returned by boy number one; while as they bent down to pick up their scattered possessions, a third party, sitting on the form behind, made playful attempts to tread upon their fingers. Two rival factions in the rear of the room were waging war with paper darts; while a small, sandy-haired boy, whose tangled hair and disordered attire gave him the appearance, as the saying goes, of having been dragged through a furze-bush backwards, rapped vigorously with his knuckles upon the master's table, and inquired loudly how many more times he was to say "Silence!"

The entrance of the three new-comers caused a false alarm, and in a moment every one was in his proper seat.

"Bother it!" cried the small, sandy-haired boy, who had b.u.mped his knee rushing from the table to his place; "why didn't you make more noise when you came in?"

"But I thought you were asking for silence, answered Diggory.

"Shut up, and don't answer back when you are spoken to by a prefect,"

retorted the small boy. "Look here, you haven't written your name on Watford's slate.--They must, mustn't they, Maxton?" he added, turning to a boy who sat at the end of one of the back seats.

"Of course they must," answered Maxton, who, with both elbows on the desk, was blowing subdued railway whistles through his hands; "every new fellow has to write his name on that little slate on Mr. Watford's table, and he enters them from there into his mark-book. I'm head boy, and I've got to see you do it. Look sharp, or he'll be here in a minute, and there'll be a row."

Diggory, Vance, and Mugford hastily signed their names, one under the other, upon the slate. There was a good deal of t.i.ttering while they did so; but as a new boy is laughed at for nearly everything he does, they took no notice of it, and had hardly got back to their places when the master entered the room, and the work began in earnest.

About a quarter of an hour later the boys were busy with a Latin exercise, when silence was broken by a shuffle and an exclamation from the back desk. "You again, Maxton," said the master, looking up with a frown. "I suppose you are determined to idle away your time and remain bottom of the cla.s.s this term as you were last. I shall put your name down for some extra work. Let's see," he continued, taking up the slate: "I appear to have three boys' names down already--'Vance,'

'Mugford,' and 'Trevanock.' What's the meaning of this? This is not my writing. How came these names here?"

"Please, sir," faltered Mugford, "we put them there ourselves."

"Put them there yourselves! What d'you want to put your names down on my punishment slate for? I suppose some one told you to, didn't they?"

"Please, sir," answered Diggory warily, "we thought we had to, so that you might have our names to enter in your mark-book."

There was a burst of laughter, but that answer went a long way towards setting the Alliance on a good footing with their cla.s.s-mates.

"That young Trevanock's the right sort," said Maxton, "and so are the others. I thought they'd sneak about that slate, but they didn't."

Mr. Noaks, junior, on the other hand, was destined to find that he was not going to carry everything before him at Ronleigh as he had done among the small fry at Horace House, The Upper Fourth voted him a "bounder," and nicknamed him "Moke." After morning school he repeated his attempt to ally himself with his former foes, but the result was decidedly unsatisfactory.

Down in the box-room, a good-sized apartment boarded off from the gymnasium, Jack Vance was serving out a ration of plum-cake to a select party, consisting of his two chums and Carton, when the ex-Philistine strolled up and joined himself to the group.

"Hullo!" he said, "are you chaps having a feed? D'you remember that pork-pie we bagged from one of your kids at Chatford? Ha, ha! it was a lark."

"I don't see it's much of a lark to bag what doesn't belong to you,"

muttered Diggory.

"What's that you say?"

"Nothing for you to hear," returned the other. "I don't know if you're waiting about here to get some cake, but I'm sure I never invited you to come."

"Look here, don't be cheeky," answered Noaks. "If you think I want to make friends with a lot of impudent young monkeys like you, all I can say is you're jolly well mistaken," and so saying he turned on his heel and walked away.