to Cook's ourselves. Let's be going now, by the way. We'll get as many
chaps as we can to promise to stick to them. But we can't prevent the
rest going where they like. Come on."

The atmosphere at Cook's that evening was heavily charged with gloom.
ExSergeant Cook, usually a treasury of jest and anecdote, was silent
and thoughtful. Mrs. Cook bustled about with her customary vigour, but
she too was disinclined for conversation. The place was ominously
empty. A quartette of school house juniors in one corner and a
solitary prefect from Donaldson's completed the sum of the customers.
Nobody seemed to want to talk a great deal. There was something in the
air which

_said as plain as whisper in the ear,
"The place is haunted._"

and so it was. Haunted by the spectre of that hideous, new, glaring
red-brick building down the street, which had opened its doors to the
public on the previous afternoon.

"Look there," said Dunstable, as they came out. He pointed along the
street. The doors of the new establishment were congested. A crowd,
made up of members of various houses, was pushing to get past another
crowd which was trying to get out. The "public-school tea at one
shilling" appeared to have proved attractive.

"Look at 'em," said Dunstable. "Sordid beasts! All they care about is
filling themselves. There goes that man Merrett. Rand-Brown with him.
Here come four more. Come on. It makes me sick."