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 ferulæ 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.
— All are taking expulsion except Corrigan, Athy answered. He's going to be flogged by Mr Gleeson.
—I know why, Cecil Thunder said. He is right and the other fellows are wrong because a flogging wears off after a bit but a fellow that has been expelled from college is known all his life on account of it. Besides Gleeson won't flog him hard.
—It's best of his play not to, Fleming said.
[46]
