With a pitiful attempt at a swagger, he completed his passage to the door, and left the Hall.
As he reached the door, a low hiss rose from the middle of the assembly, but a sudden gesture of appeal from the Captain stifled it before it could spread, and the door closed behind the retreating figure amid a silence which spoke volumes.
The meeting waited a minute or two, and then quietly rose and dispersed, every one feeling that from that afternoon a new era in the history of Templeton had been inaugurated.
Our heroes, who in the midst of later excitements had half-forgotten their own share in the afternoon's proceedings, were among the first to get out into the Quadrangle; and once there, their manner changed from one of dignified solemnity to one of agitated expectancy.
In a quarter of an hour their guest was due in Cresswell's study, and between now and then, what had they not to do?
Who shall describe that wondrous spread, or the heroes that partook of it?
How, when Mr Richardson arrived, punctual and hungry, he found a table groaning under every delicacy the ingenuity and pocket-money of three juniors could provide; how the kidneys were done to a turn and the tea-cake to a shade; how jam-pots stood like forts at each corner of the snowy cloth; how hot rolls and bath buns lorded it over white loaf and brown; how eggs, boiled three minutes and five seconds by Heathcote's watch, peeped out among watercress and lettuces; how rosy apples and luscious pears jostled one another in the centre dish; and how tea and coffee breathed forth threatenings at one another from rival pots on the same tray?
It was a spread to make the mouths in Olympus water, and drive Hebe and Ganymede to despair.

Mr Richardson, who, in the guilelessness of his heart, had brought a small plum-cake as a contribution to the feast, positively blushed as he saw that table, and hid his poor mite back in his pocket for very shame.
The "Firm," when they did go in for a thing, did it well, and no mistake; and, if Mr Richardson had paid up royally for them during the day, he should find that more than one could play at that game, and that they would pay up royally at night.
Like a brave man, the good father expanded his appetite, and, regardless of consequences, took a little of everything.

The "Firm" took a great deal of everything, and never was a more jovial meal.
Coote's cup seemed to be always on the road to or from the pot, and Georgie was for ever mistaking the dish of tea-cake for his own private plate; while Dick, bolder than any of them, insisted on giving his parent ocular demonstration of the wholesomeness of each several dish, until that good gentleman began to think it was a good thing he was not a daily visitor at Templeton.
"Jolly brickish of old Cress, giving us his study, isn't it, you chaps ?" "Rather!" said Georgie.

"I think we might almost leave him out something." "I don't particularly want this _egg_," said Coote, who had already accomplished two and was gently tapping a third, "if you think he'd like that." "How would it be to ask him in?
Would you mind, father ?" "Not at all," said Mr Richardson, really relieved at the prospect of a fifth appetite to help off the banquet.
So Dick went in search of his senior, and found him in Freckleton's study.

He felt constrained to invite both seniors to join their party, and, somewhat to his alarm, they both accepted gladly.
Dick need not have been alarmed, though, for both the provisions and the company held out wonderfully.
Mr Richardson was delighted with his boy's seniors, and they were no less delighted with him.