“It’s not anywhere in the corridor,” said he.  The whole class felt he might be mistaken, and went to the door to satisfy themselves.

Mr. Caesar affected a little sarcasm.

“Is not that it at the other end of the room?”

We turned round and gazed down the direction in which he was looking.  Yes, there was surely something there.  Penny flung up his hand and cried: 

“Please, teacher, I’ve found it.”

“Well,” began Mr. Caesar, “if one or two of you would bring the desk up here—­”

If one or two of us would!  Why, we all would—­all twenty of us.  We took off our coats and, folding them carefully, laid them on the desks.  We rolled up our shirt-sleeves above the elbows, disclosing a lot of white, childish forearms.  We spat on our hands and rubbed them together.  We did a little spitting on one another’s hands.  Then we hustled and crowded round the desk.  We lifted it off the ground, brought it a foot or two, and dropped it heavily.  Phew! it was hard work.  We took out our handkerchiefs, and wiped the sweat from our brows.  Anyone who had no handkerchief borrowed from someone who had finished with his.  Returning to our task, we carried the desk a little nearer and dropped it.  Doe got a serious splinter in his hand, and we all pulled it out for him.  Puffing and groaning as we dragged the unwieldy desk, we approached the dais on which it must be placed.  We all stepped upon the dais (slightly incommoding Mr. Caesar, who was standing there), and lifted up one end of the desk so that the pens and pencils rattled inside.  One pull, my lads, and the desk was half on the platform and half on the floor.  Leaving it in this inclined position, we stepped down to the floor again, and three of us placed our shoulders against the lower end, while the rest scrummed down, Rugby fashion, in row upon row behind one another.  A good co-operative shove, accompanied by murmurs of “Coming on your right, forwards; heel it out, whites; break away, forwards!” and up she went, a diagonal route into the air.  Unfortunately, we all raised our heads at the same time to see how much further she had to go, and back she tobogganed again on to the shins of the boys in the front row.  They declared they were henceforth incapacitated for life.

We got it on to the platform at last with a good run, but the enthusiasm of the back row of scrummers, who apparently thought the task could not be completed till they were off the floor and on the platform, was so strong that the desk was pushed much too far, and toppled over the further side of the platform.

This was too much.  My suppressed giggling burst like a grenade into uncontrolled laughter.  Then I said:  “I’m sorry, sir.”

Sec.2