“This is where His Highness is staying, is it?” He didn’t mind, if it got him in the duke’s good graces, but when he found out that it was for some self-important first-year who had refused to share a room, he practically threw the brat’s luggage out the window into the Thames.ĭrew pushed his ear against the wall of the final first-year room, not using the device. Toby had written back to say that it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he could share a room with Drew. Usually a first- and second-year ended up living together due to the odd number of students in each year, but this year the duke had sent letters to all the third-years asking if they wouldn’t mind sharing with a second year. The private rooms were supposed to be for third-years only. Which meant that the last room was the first-year who had somehow managed to reserve himself a private chamber. “The little one and the tall one,” Toby answered. “Which ones are in this room?” Drew asked.
Pleased with himself, and gracious, he let Drew listen, as well. In the next room, Toby heard snoring through the small tube, and was satisfied that he was using it correctly. Did this mean the students were asleep, or that he was using the device incorrectly?
He pressed his ear against the small tube and the large end against the wall of one of the first-years’ rooms. “That’s backwards,” Toby said, taking the device from Drew and reversing it. “You put this end against the wall, and you put your ear against the other end,” Drew said, clanging the device against the wall. However, in the past few hours, Toby and Drew had forgotten how to use it. It was really a rather lovely piece of work, simple but effective, using the basic properties of sound and enhancing them with a touch of mechanical ingenuity. It looked like a sturdy brass mug with a coil of wire where the handle should be and a small hole in the bottom. Gregory had done so happily, and given it to them and explained how to use it hours ago. Toby and Drew spent most of their time in the chemical lab-Toby working on the perfect hangover cure and Drew just enjoying the fumes-so they had turned to Gregory Cheek, the third-year mechanical specialist, for help fashioning a device that would allow them to listen through the dormitory walls to determine when all the first-years were asleep. That signal would come when Toby was sure that all the freshmen were asleep. The other seniors were still unpacking or studying in the lounge, waiting for a signal from Toby that it was time for the festivities to begin.
The initiation of the freshmen had always been run exclusively by the third-years, but Toby was the loudest and most enthusiastic of them, and Drew was his closest friend, so no one minded that Drew was coming along. LATER that night in the hall of student rooms, the third-year Toby Belch and the second-year Drew Pale were waiting.
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