"Ugh," he said, in disgust.

"My word, it is rum," said Singer, making a face. "Is it hard?"

He touched it with the tip of his forefinger, cautiously, as though it
were something that had a life of its own. Suddenly they heard Mr.
Watson's heavy tread on the stairs. They threw the clothes back on Philip
and dashed like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came into the
dormitory. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see over the rod that bore
the green curtain, and he looked into two or three of the cubicles. The
little boys were safely in bed. He put out the light and went out.

Singer called out to Philip, but he did not answer. He had got his teeth
in the pillow so that his sobbing should be inaudible. He was not crying
for the pain they had caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered
when they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because, unable to
stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his own accord.

And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his childish mind
that this unhappiness must go on for ever. For no particular reason he
remembered that cold morning when Emma had taken him out of bed and put
him beside his mother. He had not thought of it once since it happened,
but now he seemed to feel the warmth of his mother's body against his and
her arms around him. Suddenly it seemed to him that his life was a dream,
his mother's death, and the life at the vicarage, and these two wretched
days at school, and he would awake in the morning and be back again at
home. His tears dried as he thought of it. He was too unhappy, it must be
nothing but a dream, and his mother was alive, and Emma would come up
presently and go to bed. He fell asleep.