Eleven o'clock
They took his impending punishment even more cheerfully than he did himself , as our friends generally do , and promised to go in a body and see the operation . One , indeed , Simmonds , lamented over his sad fate , and sang by way of a dirge -- '' ` Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling , The darling of our crew , ' '' in a fine tenor voice for which he was celebrated . And this being taken as an allusion to the branch of cricket , in which Buller had learned to become a proficient , was considered a joke , and from that time forth the object of it was known as Tom Bowling . Eleven o'clock came , and they all went into school , and Buller did his best , to fix his attention on what he was about , instead of thinking of what was coming afterwards . Dr Jolliffe 's class was select , consisting of a dozen of the most proficient scholars , Crawley and Smith being the only two of those mentioned in this story who belonged to it . He had hardly taken his chair ten minutes before a servant came in with a card and a note , stating that a gentleman was waiting outside , and that his business was very pressing . The doctor glanced at the card , which was Lord Woodruff 's , and then tore open the note , which ran thus : `` Dear Dr Jolliffe , can I speak to you a moment .