You will all come to me at twelve o'clock in the library." At twelve o'clock they each received a flogging.

The pain inflicted was not great, and Duncan and Llewellyn, who had got into similar trouble before, cared very little for it, and went out laughing to tell the number of swishes they had received, to a little crowd of boys who were lingering outside the library door.

But not so Eric.

It was his _first_ flogging, and he felt it deeply.

To his proud spirit the disgrace was intolerable.