During the vacation certain digging had been allowed by the gardeners to fall into arrears; and Earle's posse, together with another set of six girls, had been set to do it. Now digging was the hardest work the girls were ever called upon to do, and at the beginning of the term at any rate they were spared it as much as possible. But education or output required that this digging should be done, and accordingly the twelve girls had digged for the whole morning, and in the afternoon had varied the labour by carrying heavy pots from House No. 6 to House No. 10--a distance of perhaps sixty yards. The next morning twelve girls (or rather eleven, for Burnett Minor's unset muscles had suffered but little) were half incapacitated by stiffness, and that night there was an outcry for hot baths and arnica. Louie, clad in dressing-gown and slippers and carrying her soap and sponge and towel, hobbled to the bathrooms, and came, in the box-room, upon an indignation-meeting. This box-room was the common meeting-ground for students who awaited their turns at the baths. It lay over the back courtyard arch, and the four bathrooms adjoined it, two on either side. It was piled almost to the ceiling with trunks and boxes and dress-baskets, the white initials of which glimmered in the shadows cast by a couple of candles on the floor; but there were isolated boxes enough to make seats for the seven or eight girls already assembled there. They had slippers on their naked feet and single garments on their aching bodies; and on one of Louie's own boxes Burnett Major was peering at the little blue flame of a spirit-kettle and mixing in a row of cups the paste for that beverage of revolt--cocoa. Burnett Minor had traitorously turned the general righteous anger to private account, had "bagged" the hottest bath, and was now carolling at the top of her lungs in the right-hand bathroom. "----then if Earle won't do it I vote we draw lots!" Macfarlane was exclaiming shrilly as Louie opened the door. "Those lazy louts of gardeners are supposed to have all the digging done before we come up----" They were not--not if Chesson knew it; but "Of course they are!" cried five voices at once. "Well, I'm just not going to stand it--there----" "And I'm not----" "Nor me----" "And for two pins I'd tell Priddy so!" There was a moment's silence, but only because, all having spoken at once, all had to take breath at once. "It's abominable----" "Disgusting----" "Celà m'embête----" "Here's Causton--what do _you_ vote, Causton?" they cried, turning to her. "What about?" Louie asked. "Why, everything, of course--this beastly place--and setting us to dig the first week--and Priddy's beastly cheek----" Then every tongue was unloosed. "_And_ a row every time we want an extra blouse washed----" "_And_ washing two guineas a term extra----" "_And_ only the vuggles for dinner that aren't good enough for the market----" ("Vuggles" were vegetables.) Another pause for breath.