Then
the big boys used to drop in and take their seats, bringing with them
bottled beer and song books; for although they all knew the songs by
heart, it was the thing to have an old manuscript book descended from
some departed hero, in which they were all carefully written out.
The sixth-form boys had not yet appeared; so, to fill up the gap, an
interesting and time-honoured ceremony was gone through. Each new boy
was placed on the table in turn, and made to sing a solo, under the
penalty of drinking a large mug of salt and water if he resisted or
broke down. However, the new boys all sing like nightingales to-night,
and the salt water is not in requisition--Tom, as his part, performing
the old west-country song of "The Leather Bottel" with considerable
applause. And at the half-hour down come the sixth and fifth form boys,
and take their places at the tables, which are filled up by the next
biggest boys, the rest, for whom there is no room at the table, standing
round outside.
The glasses and mugs are filled, and then the fugleman strikes up the
old sea-song,
"A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
And a wind that follows fast," etc.,
which is the invariable first song in the School-house; and all the
seventy voices join in, not mindful of harmony, but bent on noise, which
they attain decidedly, but the general effect isn't bad.
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