I.”  So Tom, in the midst of three or four more urchins similarly employed, toasted his face and the sausages at the same time before the huge fire, till the latter cracked; when East from his watch-tower shouted that they were done, and then the feast proceeded, and the festive cups of tea were filled and emptied, and Tom imparted of the sausages in small bits to many neighbours, and thought he had never tasted such good potatoes or seen such jolly boys.  They on their parts waived all ceremony, and pegged away at the sausages and potatoes, and remembering Tom’s performance in goal, voted East’s new crony a brick.  After tea, and while the things were being cleared away, they gathered round the fire, and the talk on the match still went on; and those who had them to show pulled up their trousers and showed the hacks they had received in the good cause.

They were soon, however, all turned out of the school; and East conducted Tom up to his bedroom, that he might get on clean things, and wash himself before singing.

“What’s singing?” said Tom, taking his head out of his basin, where he had been plunging it in cold water.

“Well, you are jolly green,” answered his friend, from a neighbouring basin.  “Why, the last six Saturdays of every half we sing of course; and this is the first of them.  No first lesson to do, you know, and lie in bed to-morrow morning.”

“But who sings?”

“Why, everybody, of course; you’ll see soon enough.  We begin directly after supper, and sing till bed-time.  It ain’t such good fun now, though, as in the summer half; ’cause then we sing in the little fives court, under the library, you know.  We take out tables, and the big boys sit round and drink beer—­double allowance on Saturday nights; and we cut about the quadrangle between the songs, and it looks like a lot of robbers in a cave.  And the louts come and pound at the great gates, and we pound back again, and shout at them.  But this half we only sing in the hall.  Come along down to my study.”

Their principal employment in the study was to clear out East’s table; removing the drawers and ornaments and tablecloth; for he lived in the bottom passage, and his table was in requisition for the singing.

Supper came in due course at seven o’clock, consisting of bread and cheese and beer, which was all saved for the singing; and directly afterwards the fags went to work to prepare the hall.  The School-house hall, as has been said, is a great long high room, with two large fires on one side, and two large iron-bound tables, one running down the middle, and the other along the wall opposite the fireplaces.  Around the upper fire the fags placed the tables in the form of a horse-shoe, and upon them the jugs with the Saturday night’s allowance of beer.  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.