"Sure enough! Good idea!" exclaimed the Senior Master. "Go to it! Don't burn yourselves up, don't get lost, don't get in the way of the train and don't all have apoplectic fits as my friend Andrew here is promising to do shortly if some one doesn't put an ice compress on his enthusiasm. But go on. Give 'em a good time."
"Thank you ever so much, sir!" cried Andrew, "and I'll promise to cool off."
"Go 'way!" cried the Senior Master cheerfully. "You don't know how. You're a perpetual human Roman candle."
"I'll hold him down, sir," said the other boy.
"Pshaw!" cried the Senior Master. "You're a Whiz-bang yourself--go 'long! Shoo!"
At eight, Dick Harrington made his way to the Study to ask the Senior Master whether boys "on probe" could join the triumphal procession. The Senior Master was kindly, but firm.
"Sorry, old man," he said. "Probe rules hold."
That was all. But Dick Harrington without a word went to his room on the third floor of the East Wing, stumbling on the stairs, because of the tears.
_Why_, he asked himself bitterly again and again--_why hadn't he lied?_
He crept out of his room an hour later, hearing the cheers of the returning revelers. His hallway was utterly deserted, the school was deserted. If he needed any further evidence that virtue did not pay, here it was. "_Be good and you'll be lonesome._" There was one aphorism proved, at least.
Suddenly, standing in the Quadrangle, he heard singing. Then through the bare branches he saw the glow of many torches. It was all magical and mysterious, for the wild cheering which had brought him down from his room had given way to a solemn exaltation of triumph. If he had had a hat on his head, he would have pulled it off, hearing the school song sung that way. He felt a tug at his heart and again the dimness covered his eyes because he should be fated to have no active part in that thrilling chorus of victory.
He stood quite still, swallowing hard. At the end of the first stanza, there was a "regular yell" for The Towers, as the procession turned sharply, with torches flaring, up the steep drive. He could see now that they were dragging a hay-wagon with ropes. The team was on the hay-wagon. The second stanza of the school song floated up to him, it seemed a chant drifting over from fairyland.