"Yorke is to be senior."
"How do you know that, Joe?" asked his father.
Joe replied by relating what he had heard said by the Lady Augusta that
afternoon. It did not conciliate the porter in the remotest degree: he
was not more favourably inclined to Gerald Yorke than he was to Tom
Channing. Had he heard the school never was to have a senior again, or
a junior either, that might have pleased him.
But on the following morning, when he fell into dispute with the boys
in the cloisters, he spoke out his information in a spirit of triumph
over Huntley. Bit by bit, angered by the boys' taunts, he repeated
every word he had heard from Jenkins. The news, as it was busily
circulated from one to the other, caused no slight hubbub in the
school, and gave rise to that explosion of Tom Channing's at the
dinner-table.
Huntley sought Jenkins, as he had said he would do, and received
confirmation of the report, so far as the man's knowledge went. But
Jenkins was terribly vexed that the report had got abroad through him.
He determined to pay a visit to Mr. Ketch, and reproach him with his
incaution.
Mr. Ketch sat in his lodge, taking his supper: bread and cheese, and a
pint of ale procured at the nearest public-house. Except in the light
months of summer, it was his habit to close the cloister gates before
supper-time; but as Mr. Ketch liked to take that meal early--that is to
say, at eight o'clock--and, as dusk, for at least four months in the
year, obstinately persisted in putting itself off to a later hour, in
spite of his growling, and as he might not shut up before dusk, he had
no resource but to take his supper first and lock up afterwards.
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