But my perturbation revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls' High School, and rang the head mistress's bell.

It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the horizontal bar without the mattress underneath to fall on.
Miss Bousfield was a shrewd, not disagreeable-looking little body, who saved me all the trouble of self-introduction by knowing who I was and why I came.
"Well, Jones," said she--I liked that, I had dreaded she would call me Tommy--"here you are.

How is your mother?
Why, what a state your hair is in! I really think you'd like to go into the cloak room; you'll find a brush and comb there.

It looks as if your hair were standing on end with horror at me, you know." Little she knew what my hair was on end about.

I was almost grateful to her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room, where--I confess it--with a long-tailed girl's comb, and a soft brush, and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to their former masculine order.
When I returned to the room.