These good things, when spread out on the table that evening, made quite an imposing array, and decidedly warmed the cockles of the hearts of their joint owners, and suggested to them naturally thoughts of hospitality and revelry.
"Let's have a blow-out in the dormitory," proposed Arthur.

"Froggy will let us alone, and we can square Felgate with a hunk of this toffee if he interferes." Felgate was the prefect charged with the oversight of the Shell dormitory in Railsford's--a duty he discharged by never setting foot inside their door when he could possibly get out of it.
From a gastronomic point of view the boys would doubtless have done better to postpone their feast till to-morrow.

They had munched promiscuously all day--during the railway journey especially--and almost needed a night's repose to enable them to attack the formidable banquet now proposed on equal terms.

But hospitality brooks no delays.
Besides, Dig's chicken was already a little over ripe, and it was impossible to say how Arthur's lobster might endure the night.
So the hearts of Maple, Tilbury, Dimsdale, and Simson were made glad that evening by an intimation that it might be worth their while at bed- time to smuggle a knife, fork, and plate a-piece into the dormitory, in case, as Arthur worded it, there should be some fun going.
Wonderful is the intuition of youth! These four simple-minded, uncultured lads knew what Arthur meant, even as he spoke, and joyfully did him and Dig homage for the rest of the evening, and at bed-time tucked each his platter under his waistcoat and scaled the stairs as the curfew rang, grimly accoutred with a fork in one trouser pocket and a knife in the other.
But whatever the cause, the Shell-fish in Railsford's presented a very green appearance when they answered to their names next morning, and were in an irritable frame of mind most of the day.

Their bad temper took the form of a dead set on the unhappy Monsieur Lablache, who, during the first day of his vicarious office, led the existence of a pea on a frying-pan.