Then the prepostor who stands by the master calls out the names,
beginning with the sixth form; and as he calls each boy answers "here"
to his name, and walks out. Some of the sixth stop at the door to turn
the whole string of boys into the close. It is a great match-day, and
every boy in the school, will he, nill he, must be there. The rest of
the sixth go forwards into the close, to see that no one escapes by any
of the side gates.
To-day, however, being the School-house match, none of the School-house
prepostors stay by the door to watch for truants of their side; there
is carte blanche to the School-house fags to go where they like. "They
trust to our honour," as East proudly informs Tom; "they know very well
that no School-house boy would cut the match. If he did, we'd very soon
cut him, I can tell you."
The master of the week being short-sighted, and the prepostors of the
week small and not well up to their work, the lower-school boys employ
the ten minutes which elapse before their names are called in pelting
one another vigorously with acorns, which fly about in all directions.
The small prepostors dash in every now and then, and generally chastise
some quiet, timid boy who is equally afraid of acorns and canes,
while the principal performers get dexterously out of the way. And so
calling-over rolls on somehow, much like the big world, punishments
lighting on wrong shoulders, and matters going generally in a queer,
cross-grained way, but the end coming somehow, which is, after all, the
great point.
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