He was urging Perrin to do something, but it was hard to distinguish the words because of the booming of the sea. The cold light of early morning and, an hour later, the harsh clang of the bell down the stone passages, restored the china gentleman once more to the mantelpiece; but the discovery that there had been a storm in the night only seemed to confirm the gentleman's appearance. Besides, he was no new thing—he had climbed down from his perch on other occasions. Perrin and Traill exchanged no word during breakfast. II. Garden Minimus played his small part in the whole affair by being sulky and obstinate during the whole of first hour. It was a game that he was perfectly accustomed to playing, and he knew every move from the opening gambit of “saying things under your breath that looked bad, but couldn't possibly be heard,” to the triumphant checkmate of a studied, sarcastic politeness that was most unusual and hinted at danger. Perrin had slept, as we have seen, exceedingly badly, and the old hallucination that twenty boys were in reality five hundred crept over him. They sat in stupid, irritated rows at hard wooden desks soiled with ink. Beyond the drab windows the wind howled, and the dry leaves blew against the panes. His temper rose as the hour advanced. The fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid was scarcely calculated to show dull boys at their brightest and best, and Perrin found that, by changing the letters of the figure on the board, the form knew nothing about it at all. He proceeded, as was his way, to secure the dullest, fattest, and heaviest boy (a youngster with spectacles and a protruding chin, called Somerset-Walpole) and to make merry at his expense. Somerset-Walpole—his fingers exuded ink, his coat whitewash, and his hair dust—stood with his mouth open and his brow wrinkled, and a vague wonder as to why, when he ought to be thinking about Euclid, his mind would invariably wander to the bristly hairs at the back of Mr. Perrin's neck and the silly leaves dancing about outside. Mr. Perrin played heavily with him for about quarter of an hour (the form laughing nervously at his ironical sallies), and then sent the youngster back, crying, to his seat; the boy spent the rest of the hour in drawing hideous people with noses like pens and tiny legs, and then smudging them out with his fingers.