five o'clock
`` I say , my little man , you must come and bowl to me . '' `` I 've got my lesson to learn , '' I replied . `` When do you say it ? '' inquired the fifth-form boy ; and finding that it was not required till five o'clock , and discrediting my singular difficulty , which I stated to him , he at once took me away , notwithstanding that , as a saving clause , I asserted the privilege due to a boy 's first fortnight , but which , I was now told , should not avail me for having told such a falsehood about the lesson . In the following schooltime I was , of course , `` put in the bill , '' but was not flogged , in consequence of pleading my `` first fault , '' another and too fleeting privilege of a new boy . On returning to my room in the evening , I found my two friends looking unutterable things , while around them lay , `` like leaves in wint ` ry weather , '' the fragments of our prided crockery ware ! In our absence , a boy , well knowing what he was about , had come to the cupboard to sharp some tea-things , but finding , to his disappointment , that it was locked , he was yet determined that we should not escape him .