factions in the rear of the room were waging war with paper darts; while
a small, sandy-haired boy, whose tangled hair and disordered attire gave
him the appearance, as the saying goes, of having been dragged through a
furze-bush backwards, rapped vigorously with his knuckles upon the
master's table, and inquired loudly how many more times he was to say
"Silence!"

The entrance of the three new-comers caused a false alarm, and in a
moment every one was in his proper seat.

"Bother it!" cried the small, sandy-haired boy, who had bumped his knee
rushing from the table to his place; "why didn't you make more noise
when you came in?"

"But I thought you were asking for silence, answered Diggory.

"Shut up, and don't answer back when you are spoken to by a prefect,"
retorted the small boy. "Look here, you haven't written your name on
Watford's slate.--They must, mustn't they, Maxton?" he added, turning to
a boy who sat at the end of one of the back seats.

"Of course they must," answered Maxton, who, with both elbows on the
desk, was blowing subdued railway whistles through his hands; "every new
fellow has to write his name on that little slate on Mr. Watford's
table, and he enters them from there into his mark-book. I'm head boy,
and I've got to see you do it. Look sharp, or he'll be here in a
minute, and there'll be a row."

Diggory, Vance, and Mugford hastily signed their names, one under the
other, upon the slate. There was a good deal of tittering while they