I'll go and get the pan myself." And off he went in high dudgeon, leaving his guests in charge of the feast.
"If he can't get the pan or a toasting-fork," said Curtis, disinterestedly, "wouldn't it be as well to have the dough-nuts now, and leave the herrings till supper, eh, Pil?
Pity for them to get stale." Pilbury said nothing, but broke off a little piece of the peppermint- rock in a meditative manner, and drummed his feet on the floor.
"Upon my word," he broke out after a good three minutes' waiting, "that blessed pan must be jolly heavy.

There's three of them sticking to it now!" "Wait a bit, I hear him coming," said Curtis, going to the door.

He stepped out into the passage, Morgan following him.
Pilbury heard a sudden scuffling outside, and a sound of what did not seem like Welchers' voices.

He hurried to the door to ascertain the cause, and as he did so he found himself caught roughly by the arm and slung violently against the opposite wall, while at the same moment Telson, Parson, Bosher, and half a dozen Parrett juniors rushed past him into the empty study, slamming and locking and barricading the door behind them! It was all so quickly done that the luckless Welchers could hardly believe their own senses.

But when they heard the distant voice of Philpot shouting that he was locked up in the chemistry-room, and of Morrison complaining that he couldn't get out of his own study, and of Cusack demanding to be released from the lavatory; and when their combined assault on the door produced nothing but defiant laughter mingled with the merry frizzing of the herrings before the fire, they knew it was no dream but a hideous fact.