Young Noaks was placed in the Upper Fourth, and they were not destined therefore to have him as a class-mate.
The Third Form at Ronleigh had, for some reason or other, received the title of "The Happy Family." They certainly were an amusing lot of little animals, and Diggory and his companions coming into the classroom rather late, and before the entrance of the master, saw them for the first time to full advantage.

Out of the two-and-twenty juveniles present, only about six seemed to be in their proper places.
One young gentleman sitting close to the blackboard cried, "Powder, sir!" and straightway scrubbed his neighbour's face with a very chalky duster.

The latter, by way of retaliation, smote the former's pile of books from the desk on to the ground--a little attention which was immediately returned by boy number one; while as they bent down to pick up their scattered possessions, a third party, sitting on the form behind, made playful attempts to tread upon their fingers.

Two rival factions in the rear of the room were waging war with paper darts; while a small, sandy-haired boy, whose tangled hair and disordered attire gave him the appearance, as the saying goes, of having been dragged through a furze-bush backwards, rapped vigorously with his knuckles upon the master's table, and inquired loudly how many more times he was to say "Silence!" The entrance of the three new-comers caused a false alarm, and in a moment every one was in his proper seat.
"Bother it!" cried the small, sandy-haired boy, who had bumped his knee rushing from the table to his place; "why didn't you make more noise when you came in ?" "But I thought you were asking for silence, answered Diggory.
"Shut up, and don't answer back when you are spoken to by a prefect," retorted the small boy.

"Look here, you haven't written your name on Watford's slate .-- They must, mustn't they, Maxton ?" he added, turning to a boy who sat at the end of one of the back seats.
"Of course they must," answered Maxton, who, with both elbows on the desk, was blowing subdued railway whistles through his hands; "every new fellow has to write his name on that little slate on Mr.Watford's table, and he enters them from there into his mark-book.