Page:Jaspar Tristram (1899).djvu/30

 ‘Well, what is it?’ Jaspar asked without however turning round.

‘Orr says everybody’s to come down into the Playroom!’ was the answer.

‘I don’t want to!’ Jaspar observed sulkily; and he began to pick at a corner of the window-frame.

‘Oh, all right!’ returned the other. ‘Please yourself! But I should advise you to come! All the other chaps are there!’ To this however he made no reply, and then, as with his back still towards the other, he worked away at trying altogether to detach from the frame the little splinter of wood he had begun to loosen, he heard the boy go racing back down the room; the door at the farther end slammed-to and once more he was by himself. The only sounds that broke the silence were the dashing of the rain in intermittent gusts against the windows, the gurgling of a gutter-pipe as the water came spurting out in jerks and, very faint, a noise of talking and moving in the Playroom underneath.

In a few minutes however he began to think that on the whole perhaps it might be wiser to go down, and so, muttering to himself the while, he went slowly off.

Downstairs he found nearly the whole school, but without the least attempt to interchange a word with any one, he edged his way to the back, and then, bent on continuing, so far as he could, to do what he had been doing before, he leant his elbows on the sill of a window and went on gazing out into the yard. But still out of the corner of his eye he could see how, while a few of the chaps were whispering among themselves, the greater part stood silent and only looked towards the open door. Presently in the passage just outside there were cries and a noise as of scuffling and then he caught sight of Piggy, clinging desperately to the door-post from which Orr, his arms about his waist, was trying to lug him by main force. So tightly however did he hold on, that it was not until a friend of Orr’s came up and began grinding his knuckles that he let go. Up to then the boy’s face had indeed been working curiously but he had never uttered a sound; now, as his fingers, involuntarily unclosed, and he