Dicky and I kept catching one another's eyes, and then glancing on to where the Dux, cool as a cucumber, sat turning over the leaves of his lexicon.
"He's got a cheek of his own, has Dux," said I to myself.
"If I didn't know it was him," signalled the ungrammatical Dicky across the room, "I should never have believed it." "You may make as many faces as you like at young Brown," glared Tempest at me, "but if I catch you making any more at me, your mother will need some extra pocket-handkerchiefs." "Jones," observed Dr Plummer aloud, "a double _poena_ for aggravated inattention." All right.

I was getting pretty full up with engagements for one day, and began to think bed-time would be rather a relief.
It came at last.

In the dormitory Ramsbottom successfully interfered with conversation by patrolling the chamber until the boys were asleep.
No one doubted that he had been set to the task by the head master, and it augured rather badly for the resumption of the inquest next day.
However, even patrols go to sleep sometimes, and when I woke early next morning the usher had vanished to his own chamber.

My first thought was not Hector, or the doctor, or my _poenas_, or the Dux, but the pond.
How, I wondered, was it getting on?
I routed up Dicky, and very quietly we dressed and slipped out.

I knew that my early rising, if it were discovered, would probably be set down to my zeal for discharging impositions.