The worst House at Sherborough

"Now then, Hunter!"

"Well rowed, Bruce!"

Almost in equal volume came the two shouts, slightly varied, from five hundred throats, as Sherborough ran eagerly, a vast, struggling, pushing crowd beside the light whiffs that fought their way against a spring-flood current. Seldom did the School boast such an imposing river; seldom did those of poor wind find it so simple to keep up with a race.

Every one was there, in running kit. In fact, the last need not be added, for who would dare to risk the certain name of froust or slacker by coming down to run in every-day costume? Or who would venture not to run, in a school whose Latin motto bids her sons do even the least thing with a will?

But every one, at any rate, was there.

The last few weeks of Easter Term, a constant problem for master and for boy alike, are set aside at Sherborough for "tubbing," and the last day of all for a regatta. No one of course is at the top of his rowing form, nor are the times now made those quoted by Sherburians, when talking big of their aquatic skill; but the event serves as a sort of wintry foretaste of summer delights and gives the boys some interest in life. Other schools, on this last day, may lounge about with hands in bankrupt pockets and moan that football is over, cricket yet to come; but Sherborough, hoarse and stiff, rejoices that there always is the river.

"Put it on, Hunter! Spurt!"

"Well rowed, Bruce! Well rowed!"

There was no lack of cheering, even from fellows not in the same House as either of those in the final heat, for this is the Regatta's great event, no less than its last: the Gordon Sculls. The yells, however, that spurred the rival watermen, came with a very different note, and almost from a different spot.

Weston's, with those who favoured Bruce, ran in a solid phalanx, well ahead, and shouted with the happy joy of those who grasp success quite contrary to expectation. No one had ever thought Bruce would really beat Hunter, who won so easily last year. Jove, it was jolly good! So in ecstasy they shrieked out: "Well rowed, Bruce! Well rowed, sir! Oh, well rowed!" . . .

And almost with an interval between, the supporters of Hunter pounded unhappily along in all the gloom and depression of those who have hopes suddenly dashed into fragments. Every one had looked upon the Gordon cup almost as already on the Hall mantelpiece, and now----! With despairing energy, as though exhortation might induce its champion to do better, the School House chanted in a tone of grievance, "Row up, Hunter! Put it on, now! Spurt!" . . .

But suddenly things changed.

Opposite to the school boathouse the Sherborough course bends sharply to the left, four hundred yards or so before the finish, and round that corner swirls the full force of the spring floods.

Hunter knew that, and had husbanded his strength. Bruce knew it also, but was younger. Plug--plug--plug, with all his energy he had set off at the start, and as he drew ahead, the excitement of success, those wild cheers from the bank, the whistles, rattles, and triumphant pistol-shots, had lent force to his arms, had ruined his young judgment. Gradually that fine swing which had drawn him on in front became an agonizing effort. Could he last out? He was not sure. Elation began to give way, in himself, to doubt. Should he have gone a little easier at first? These thoughts thrust themselves upon him as he pulled mechanically at his sculls, comforted by glances at the stretch of water between his rival and himself, but always with a growing sense of effort. Then--the corner . . . !

Almost with the shock of shipwreck, his frail whiff plunged into the turgid stream.

Plug--plug--plug: but no! There is a limit to that policy, and Bruce's strength was done. He knew it, too, knew that he was beaten. Not perhaps by Hunter, who might be equally rowed out, but beaten by the stream. He gathered all his will and energy together, gritted his teeth in the heroic strain, but with every moment the wind-swept flood seemed growing in its strength, with every moment those cheers of triumph more ironical.

Not so to Hunter. An oar of less experience might have been hustled into a spurt by the sense of failure or by the despairing cries of his discouraged partisans. Hunter, however, had rowed for two years in the Crew and won the Gordon Sculls before; he had confidence and judgment, could afford to wait. He did not trouble about Bruce, or where he was. He only knew that he himself was doing all the work that he could do in this big stream, if he had still to row that quarter-mile against the wind and the full current. Supposing Bruce could go faster than himself now, and yet do that last bit,--why, Bruce deserved to win, and would!

So Dick Hunter sculled contentedly along behind, hearing the two roars but knowing that he must keep to his strategy, until the corner came.

Then, warned by that same impact of the waters, he called upon himself for the great effort. No one was watching him with any care except his coach, who alone understood the odd conditions of this race; so no one saw his firm lips close more tightly yet, or noted how he suddenly went forward with arms still more tense and face more resolute.

Could he? He could! A clean, good pull, and the whiff leapt forward in triumph over the protesting current. Dick could feel the movement, almost as of a human adversary yielding in a wrestling bout. And again nobody except his coach, an Old Boy once of the School House, saw how his face lit up of a sudden with the joy of a good fight, and almost with the bliss of conquest.

Indeed, as is usual on these occasions, nobody saw anything at all of this important moment. The Westonites were still shrieking themselves hoarse in triumph, as the straight reach brought the winning-post in sight; the School House, ever deeper in despair, had almost ceased to shout at all. Among themselves, jogging along, they muttered darkly, "He's lost! He's not trying! Must be ill, or something;" and then raggedly the vain cry came, "Oh, buck up, Hunter. Spurt!"

But the Old Boy saw--and knew. He looked onward to Bruce, splashing in battle with the waves; he looked again at Hunter, sculling cleanly; and as a Cambridge Blue, he knew. He raised his megaphone and shouted.

"That's it!" he yelled; his voice breaking with excitement. "That's the way. Oh, excellent!"

Every one was startled. Had the man one mad? Excellent, indeed, with Bruce lengths on ahead!

But then they looked in turn, and they too saw. Hunter was making her shift! The spurt, for which they all had yelled, had come at last.

In one moment everything was changed.

"Good man! Good man! Hooray! Excellent! You're gaining on him now! Go on!"--thus did they howl incoherently, these experts who just now had said, "He's lost."

The Westonites, astounded by this sudden uproar, looked around, and they, too, saw. The race had seemed at an end, with their man leading by so much, and nobody had worried at the slower pace. That was quite natural in such floods. They trotted on, cheering quietly and saving their lungs for the final roar.

But now these complacent cheers gave place to warnings.

"Look out, Bruce! Buck up! He's spurting." Now, indeed, it was their turn to cry out for a spurt.

And Bruce could not oblige. Valiantly he tried--but failed. If ever a man was thoroughly rowed out, the Westonites had him now for their inspection.

"He's done." "Dead beat." "Hunter's gaining!" Such were the dull murmurs that went round among them. And with a despair worse because it followed upon triumph, they took up the School House's now abandoned cry of "Spurt!"

There wasn't time, it wasn't possible: that, by now, became their consolation, as they jogged on at a walking pace and whispered. Anxiously they looked around and began to calculate what lead Bruce had. Six lengths, said one. No; more like ten, another. Ten? Why, it was only four or five, if that!

The thing was difficult, because the field of observation varied. Every moment brought the boats closer together, until by now the rival crowds had grown to be but one again, nor was it any longer possible to separate the cries. A vague tumult, deafening and senseless, came from the vast mob.

Was there really time?

The Blue, towering above them, wondered. Certainly a chance! . . . And full of admiration for this sporting youngster, he shouted constantly through his tin megaphone, "Well done, sir. Now you've got him. Keep it up!" He knew the value of encouragement.

But Hunter needed none. The thing had been thought out, and now that he had reached the spot where all his energy was needed, no one need fear that he would offer less. Splendidly regular, with long-drawn sweeps, he pulled his whiff along the outer station, whilst Bruce, who scarcely seemed to move, fought his way gallantly beneath the inner bank.

"Bruce! Bruce! Now then, Bruce!" yelled the despairing Westonites, and some of them ran onward to the finish, as though their presence there must somehow draw him on. In frantic excitement they shouted and gesticulated from that point of vantage.

"Well rowed, Hunter! Well rowed, sir! You're winning! Hunter, Hunter!"

Hoarsely croaked the School House boys, and almost afraid to hope, measured with anxious eyes the lessening space between the boats, until-- moment of transport and of noise quite indescribable!--the bow of one had overlapped the other's rudder. Then indeed the Blue, the only man who had a cartridge left, fired into the air three times.

It was a signal.

He had looked on to the finish, thirty yards ahead; he knew that his man was half dead, but Bruce was worse; the thing seemed possible; one couldn't miss the chance; and so----! The three shots spoke this message, pre-arranged, "Use your every inch of strength: it's worth it, even if you bust your heart! You will not win without."

And Hunter answered it. Sherburians who were there still speak of that last spurt; how Hunter, who seemed doing all he could already, heard the signal pre-arranged for only desperate need, and did about three times as much; how under that supreme endeavour his whiff shot through the angry waves; how Bruce, no less aware what those shots meant, tensed all his muscles and tried bravely, but could not; how every one shouted nobody knew what; how the official umpire danced in agony of mind, his eyes glancing from pole to pole; and how to those who watched, the two whiffs, in very different style, seemed to cross that imaginary line at the same instant and nobody knew which had won; but how the umpire, with those two poles to guide him beyond doubt or error, leapt around and cried out loudly, "Hunter wins!"

Then there was babel absolute. Even the Sefton match, that great event of Sherborough's year, has not heard such applause as this, for here was a race such as a man shall not see twice in his lifetime; and everybody must cheer Hunter,--yes, and Bruce.

Neither of them heard, of course. Bent over their sculls, which ploughed the waves, they paid the tribute to Nature, whom they had defied. Only as the river, finally triumphant, threatened to sweep them backward to shipwreck and destruction, did some instinct, the instinct of an oarsman, seem to warn them that this was not the time for rest. Very wearily they turned, and were borne easily, by a stream now their friend again, to the school boathouse and the welcome shore.

Helter-skelter the School rushed to get there first, and when Dick brought his whiff alongside the pontoon, arriving first by the victor's immemorial right, there were a hundred hands anxious to take it in, and more that longed to carry him up to the House. Tired and white, he smiled faintly as he was swamped in the vast surge, and when redoubled cheers welcomed his jerky reappearance aloft on his admirers' shoulders, there was something in his face that would have struck a close observer as neither happiness nor triumph.

Boys are not observant, nor indeed if any one of them had noticed, would he have put it down to anything but Hunter's well-known modesty. Women, however, have a keener eye for drama, and as the procession moved noisily away, the mother of a School House boy turned to the Head Master and laughingly exclaimed, "Well, I must say he doesn't look exactly pleased!"

"He is famous for his modesty, I believe," said Mr. Giffard, and he smiled.

The parent raised her lorgnettes to get a final glance and did not seem quite satisfied with what she saw. "But he looks just as though he were trying not to cry. Perhaps it's excitement? . . . Or is he leaving, poor boy?"

"No, we hope to have him for another year," quietly replied the master.

But he hesitated before speaking, and this observant woman felt that there was some mystery she had not probed. However, if observant, she also was polite and social decency demanded that she should not probe it!

"He's very strong, for a boy," she remarked, instead; "isn't he? He's really much more like an undergraduate."

"Yes," the Head Master agreed. "He is a strong fellow, very,--physically. He is our goalkeeper, Hunter; and in the Crew as well. A splendid all-round man, in fact."

This answer served somehow only to whet the hearer's curiosity. Decidedly, she fancied, there had been an emphasis on that word "physically." Had the poor fellow got into some scrape? She must not ask, she knew; the master's final words were obviously meant to close the topic; but in her mind she made a note of the name Hunter. She would see whether her son knew why this nice-looking boy with the clear-cut face and the dark eyes was so sad in the moment of his triumph. . . .

Up the river-bank and through the gateway into the school grounds the tangled knot of boys pursued a most uneven way. Above their heads, upon a moving seat of shoulders, the poor victor-victim bobbed in an unheroic manner. Cheering his success, mocking his agony, foiling his efforts at escape, they rushed him pell-mell to the School House porch, and dropped him with loud cries of "Speech!"

It was not by any means the first time that Dick Hunter had returned home in this honourable but painful fashion. Usually, at this stage of the ceremony he had made a few humorous remarks, mainly about his wounds, and so thankfully escaped to the changing-room, while they indulged in three more cheers. To-day, however, as he stood upon the steps and faced his captors, there was sadness in his eyes and for a moment he said nothing; then "Thanks, thanks awfully," came as with an effort, in low, serious tones; and Hunter, turning rapidly aside, had gone along to his own study.

Then even the boys noticed.

"I say," said Phelps, Captain of Boats and a Prefect, "I hope he isn't feeling rotten? It must have been a ghastly strain."

"Oh no," answered Alan Scott, Dick's greatest friend; "he said he felt as fit as anything."

That reassured them, for anything from Scott was just as though it had come straight from Hunter, and they went away.

Phelps turned to Scott. "Why don't you go and cheer the old bird up, Alan? I didn't like his look a bit."

"No, and he was just like that this morning, too; been mooning about alone all day. Thought it was nerves about the race. . . . But I think I'll go and see if I can't stir him up. So long!"

Inside his study, Dick, triumph forgotten, sat with his forehead on his hand and read for the hundredth time that day a letter from his father.

". . . Try not to blame me, old fellow;"--so ran the bit that he was reading now--"we've always been good pals, haven't we? and if I didn't tell you before, it was for the simple reason that I didn't know. The thing seemed absolutely safe. I thought I should clear a nice sum and make things easier for you: every one said so: and if I hadn't trusted---- But what's the use of going all over that again? It's done now, I'm ruined absolutely--penniless, and we must face it, you and I. I wish that I could face it out alone (and, of course, I shall eventually pay twenty shillings in the pound); but it wouldn't be the game, would it, for us to spend money till we're straight again? So, as I say, you must leave Sherborough, old man. I'm sorry; you know that; and I'm almost glad that your dear mother didn't live to suffer this blow; but there it is, and we must face it out.

"I wrote off at once to your Head and he has wired back, `Please do nothing final till you have seen me. Suggestion to make.' I'm afraid nothing can be changed, but although you'll be wanting to say good-bye to all your pals, poor old man, I think perhaps you'd be wiser to say nothing to any one till we've heard Giffard's suggestion? I'll come down to-morrow to see him; we can travel home together; and if----"

If! What was the use of ifs? . . .

And why was he reading it at all? He knew the beastly thing by heart! He only wished that he could possibly forget it.

Wearily he put the letter down and, seeing nothing, stared out fixedly across the field where little groups still stood about, discussing the great race and idly waiting for the lock-up bell.

Leaving. Leaving to-morrow! Not to be captain of the footer, not to row for Sherborough again; and all at a day's notice. Never to see Alan and all his pals again, not even to say good-bye to them, but just--to leave!

It is only human to value things most when one has got to be without them, and it was not till now that Dick realized how happy he had been at Sherborough; how strongly the old place, with its storm-beaten walls and great traditions, had twined itself around his heart. Bad enough, he saw now, to have to leave at all; but that last year would have been so glorious, for all its pain--and now he was to leave without it! Why had he not been happier? He had taken everything as it came--success, friendship, popularity--never reflecting that many lacked them all, and never feeling that he need be grateful. Well, now he had his punishment! . . .

Deep in his self-accusing reverie, he gave a start as loud knocks upon the study door announced a visitor. Hurriedly he put the letter back into his pocket, and turned about almost with an air of guilt, to meet the puzzled face of his great friend.

Frankly, Alan was puzzled; he could not make it out at all. Why was Dick, generally so full of fun, moping about like this? He had not missed the rustle of paper as he entered, and was almost sure that Dick had put away a letter. Silly old fool not to tell him if anything was up!

"Hullo, Dick," he said, as he came in; "what's up? Every one's wanting to congratulate you, and--I say, I hope that spurt wasn't too much for you?"

"No, rather not, you old ass!" said Dick, trying to be cheerful. "You always say I'm such a modest blossom; well, perhaps that's why I'd rather sit in here?"

But Alan was not in any way deceived. He looked fixedly at Dick.

"I say, none of your people are bad, are they?" he asked, in a new tone that somehow put a world of sympathy into the simple words.

"No thanks, old man," Dick answered; "everything's all right."

Alan, like the so observant parent, did not in the least believe, but, like her, was forced to dissemble.

"Well, come and change," he said, looking at his watch. "Twenty minutes still before lock-up, so if we buck up shifting, we can have a last stroll round."

"Right you are," said Dick. His friend, watching intently, noted the way in which, as he got up, he looked out at the broad field, at the trees golden in the sunset, at everything he was so soon to lose; and though Alan could not understand, it hurt him.

"Right you are," repeated Dick, and he moved wearily towards the door; then added in a lifeless tone, "Let's come and have a last stroll round."

Some ancient sage, in the world's youth, when it was still possible to say true things and yet be thought original, probably remarked that weak Man can survive almost any curse which Fate may offer, except continual prosperity.

Everything from the start had gone well with Dick Hunter. The loss of his mother, which might seem a deafening blow to any child, was mitigated by the tireless love of a devoted father. Colonel Hunter, staggering under the blow of his wife's death and hardly able yet to understand that what had seemed a real part of himself, of his life, was now his only as a tender memory, had turned the whole flood of a reserved but passionate affection on to his young son. People called their friendship beautiful as they looked back at the two figures, so different in height and years: the grey-haired soldier with his ready smile, and the boy whose warm hand slipped instinctively into his father's.

Years went on and Colonel Hunter with unwilling logic decided that his son had reached the age when he must go to school. Half amused but half ashamed, he realized that he had almost grown into a mother; he had the woman's wish to keep the boy always beside him! Perhaps, unconsciously, when he had sacrificed himself for his son's good, he had been really paying a last tribute to his wife? At any rate the wrench was hardly less agonizing than that earlier parting. He missed Dick so terribly at every moment of the day, and now for the first time since his wife's death knew himself a lonely old man, and alone. He sat at night in the big house that seemed so silent, puffing at his pipe; longed for the holidays; read and re-read the so brief letters; and consoled himself with pictures of his boy growing strong and manly in the good, hard mill of Sherborough.

That was his one wish and ambition: that his boy--their boy--should grow into a strong, manly man. Everything in these years had been directed to that end. It was a Spartan, if a loving education; and many a time had the sentimentalist which pops up inside every man as years draw on been rigidly thrust down because it did not fit in with the hardening process. He wished his son to treat him as a friend, because equality lives longer than subjection. Even now, he would not visit him at Sherborough, much as he longed to go, because he felt that Dick must learn, so soon, to stand alone!

Dick, of course, at Sherborough was far less lonely.

Good-looking, strong for his years, lovingly trained to the art of bat and ball, accustomed from childhood to express even the tenderest emotion with reserve, he plunged into public school life as to the manner born. Happy from the first day and popular almost as soon, he was a splendid tribute to his father's training. "Sherborough's a jolly fine school," he wrote in his second letter with a sublimely expert air, and that grateful place was no less quick to vote him "quite a decent kid."

This view persevered, except that the last word soon grew inadequate for one whose legs shot out and muscles hardened at so wild a pace. Hunter tried every form of sport, and very seldom failed in any. Honour and modesty had been the chief qualities instilled by the old Colonel's systematic training. Hunter never failed a friend, and even when the laurels clustered thick about his brow, showed not the least sign of thinking himself in any way superior. As a result, the rank and file loved him almost as warmly as his nearest friends. He was among those lucky folk who spend their days enshrouded, as it were, in a warm, genial aura of good will. At home, his father lived to help him; at school, there were a hundred who would rush to serve him.

Dick, modesty itself in estimating his achievements, yet revelled in the popularity that they secured.

To be always wanted; never to be able to do wrong; to have power, yet not use it because one can rule by affection; to have no enemies and countless friends; to hit the bull's-eye of success at almost every fresh attempt--here is, indeed, good fortune enviable beyond the lot of any king. Dick, none the less, could scarcely be expected to value it properly. That was a task more easy for the outcasts, the useless smugs who could do nothing for their House or School. They might call Hunter a lucky devil and sigh for even one of his gay-coloured caps or one of his good friends, but Dick, used from his youth to love, accustomed to efficiency, could take it all for granted and be happy without feeling grateful.

Now indeed--so vast the dangers of prosperity--now, at the first adverse puff of Fate, he found himself resentful. Why had he ever had all this if he were bound to lose it? Ever so much easier always to have gone without it! . . . So did he argue, with all the childish fallacies of one long spoilt by Fortune, and gradually, as he compared the new with the old and sought wildly for some scapegoat other than his too ungrateful self, his thoughts turned easily towards his father.

It was no fault, Dick saw suddenly, of his own. Perhaps he ought to have enjoyed himself much more; perhaps he had not been grateful enough. But what of that? Things would have gone on as they were, with him quite happy, but for that beastly letter from his home. His pater had been gambling--that was it! --investing in things that weren't safe; and so . . . he must leave Sherborough, leave Alan, leave the river, leave everything he loved! It wasn't fair or just. His father might have thought of him. It was all very fine to say that you were sorry and you wished that you could face it out alone, and all that sort of stuff, but that was just it--you jolly well could not; he--Dick-- had to face the worst of it and leave the dear old School. . . . !

So he stood upon the station platform with a hard, sulky look around his mouth, not at all the same Dick who usually welcomed his devoted father with a smile which proved the love not to be all upon one side.

It seemed, too, a different person who climbed wearily down from a third smoker and walked towards his son. Dick had never thought much about his father's age. They had been such good pals; ridden, fished, shot, done everything together; the question of years did not enter into their friendship. How should any son guess at the pathos of a father who deliberately clung to youth in word and action, so that he might not seem a dull old fossil to the son he loved? He did everything, and therefore he was young!

But now, now when the depressed figure of a broken man came wearily towards him, a man whose very moustache, once so fiercely martial, seemed to droop in grey dejection--now Dick suddenly realized that this was an old man.

Perhaps at other moments that discovery would have induced new tenderness and greater love; at this, it merely widened the chasm that opened out between them.

Colonel Hunter on his side, penitent and worried, hoping to find one who would console him in a crisis especially painful to a man with whom honour ranked as a religion, noted that vague difference in his boy's look, and knew himself face to face, instead, with an accuser.

"I'm so sorry, old man," he said, as he shook hands, for that was his one thought--of penitent regret that his boy, too, must suffer.

"It couldn't be helped," Dick answered in forced tones; "you didn't see what it would mean, did you? or you wouldn't have done it." His thought was all for his own suffering; he had none for his father's shame.

Colonel Hunter looked straight at his son. This cold, grudging absolution was so different from what he had expected--hoped. He looked straight at him, and in that moment knew the nature of that change which he had noticed: his son had grown from boy to man. Cold logic had usurped the place of an unreasoning love.

"It seemed so safe," he answered humbly. "I meant it for the best. I wanted to make more for you." His military soul found some odd comfort in abasement. The fault was his, and he must pay the penalty.

Dick made no answer, and they walked silently towards the School. All the old comradeship was gone, and each accused the other of the fact. To the son, it was a matter of finance; their ruin had spoilt everything, and that was not his fault; but the father laboured underneath a blow far more severe. He had believed Dick's love, the love he had so fought to keep, would rise superior to any test. His son would surely stand by him in anything. He knew that he had erred, but he had tried to make amends. He had offered apologies--and his apologies were not accepted. Dick, who had borne success so well, could not endure adversity. . . . It was a blow more bitter than any loss of pounds and pence; it was the shattering of a long-worshipped idol.

Later he might and would create another--for was he not Dick's father and did he not love him?--but it could never be an idol of the same perfection.

He had looked for too much, judging a boy's weakness by his own full-grown strength. Into this ideal image of his son he had read all the virtues; honour, courage, manliness, everything that he admired. He had felt so sure that Dick would rise superior to any test; and now----!

Presently he would adjust his view; look for much less, and even be delighted if he got a little more--for was he not Dick's father, and did he not love him all the same, however weak?--but just now it hurt terribly, hurt far more than all his other troubles.

"I think I'll go and call on Giffard at once," he said dully, as they reached the school gate, "and see what his suggestion is."

"All right," came the wooden answer, like the words of one speaking from behind a mask. "I'll wait in the drive. But I don't see anything's much use."

Without any more farewell the old man turned from him, and as he turned his eyes filled with tears. It was not for the pain: life had stiffened him beyond tears for that; but he had seen his hopes killed, and was disappointed.

"You must have wondered, Colonel Hunter," said the Head Master, leaning back in his chair and obviously coming to the real business of the morning, "why I telegraphed asking you if you could not manage to come here and see me before deciding definitely about your son's future."

"Not at all, Mr. Giffard, not at all," said Colonel Hunter in a polite, appeasing way. The remark meant nothing, but seemed an obvious and easy one to make. He had been dreading this interview as only a sensitive, reserved man can dread things that go deep into life; nor had its opening passages, the courteous trifles of strangers meeting for the first time, reassured him. It was distinctly a relief to get near the "suggestion" at which the telegram had hinted.

Mr. Giffard ignored his remark, and proceeded to explain.

"The fact is, this--er, unfortunate occurrence in your private affairs happens to come exactly at the same moment as a not unimportant change in the domestic economy of Sherborough, and by this chance I am enabled to make you a proposal that you can, of course, accept or refuse, but will not, I hope, in any case, resent."

The Colonel waved his hand and made a gesture something like an abbreviated bow. As an Army man, he valued action above speech, and he was eager for the fray. There had been no lack of preliminaries and long words.

"You have no doubt heard that your son yesterday won the Gordon Sculls, defeating a boy from Mr. Weston's House called Bruce?"

"Yes, yes," the other could not help interjecting. This was quite endless! Besides, Dick was waiting out in the school drive for him.

Mr. Giffard smiled at his impatience. "Mr. Weston," he said slowly, as though resolved to reach the point by his own road, "is moving next term into a bigger House, and naturally taking his boys with him. His present building, which holds thirty boys, will be taken over by a Mr. Wilson, who, in turn, has a still smaller House--a House, to be exact, of sixteen boys."

He paused, but his visitor could not, at the moment, light on any very appropriate remark. Frankly, the size of Mr. Wilson's House was a matter that left him altogether cold.

Presently the Head Master began again.

"Mr. Wilson's House, you must understand," he said--and Colonel Hunter nearly groaned aloud--"is not--er, a bad House." Here he moved a paper-knife upon his desk, and smiled. "All Sherborough Houses, ex hypothesi, are good! Still, I am bound to admit that, whether owing to its smallness, as I suspect, or for other reasons, Mr. Wilson's House has not, so far, made its mark upon our life in either work or play. Nor, as a matter of fact, has it produced any one boy who is capable of leading, or of setting the tone essential to a big House, as Wilson's now will be."

Here he stopped and rested the finger-tips of one hand on those of the other, looking at his visitor as though, now that he had explained so much, he would be glad of his decision; if adverse, they need go no further. But Colonel Hunter, used to military directness, had not yet found his bearings, so to speak, and simply murmured "Yes?" in a manner more or less encouraging. He wanted that suggestion in plain language. He did not want a speech.

"Now," said the master, with the air of a counsel who seeks to rivet the mind of a dull jury, "that same thing, as you will have guessed, struck Mr. Wilson, and only the day before I received your letter he had consulted me--in confidence, you understand--as to whether I could anyhow arrange that some trustworthy boy should be transferred to his House, to act as Head Boy, and so tide over this awkward period in a House's growth. The thing, I confess, seemed difficult, though Mr. Wilson, thinking it might act as an inducement, added that he would take such a boy, if he approved of my choice, without any sort of charge. Now in your son's case--you understand, of course, Colonel Hunter, that I merely throw it out as a suggestion--but in your son's case, his scholarship covers the School fees, so that you would be able to give him his last year at no expense beyond the bills for stationery, et cætera, or at a far less cost than you could possibly maintain him elsewhere; and it seemed to me that--possibly--under the circumstances----" And his voice died away.

"I see," the Colonel said, as though speaking to himself, and then sat silent. There seemed to him no need for words. There was the proposal (at last!), and he must consider it. He would say something, when he had anything to say.

Now, of this odd couple, it was the master's turn not quite to understand. Thinking his visitor's silence to imply that he was hurt by the idea, his diffidence, constantly growing through the interview, urged him to embark again.

"You must understand," he said, "that there would be no conceivable suspicion of charity or favour about this arrangement. Mr. Wilson would secure your son's help and influence--a very valuable property, if I may say so! I, of course, shall miss him greatly from my House, but that, you say, must in any case be so, and it will be something to have him in the School; we want him for our crew and for the football. Of course," he felt impelled to add, "I do not pretend to say that your son's last year will be quite as pleasant as it might have been if he could have stayed in the School House. Here he has been an idol, popular and with innumerable friends, whilst there his task, I freely own, is almost certain to be difficult; he may easily have to fight against prejudice and face a certain transient unpopularity, always difficult for a boy who--I sometimes suspect--is almost weakly dependent on the opinion of his fellows; but at least he will finish his education, and I do not think that a little responsibility has ever harmed anybody's character."

Then, at last, this surprising Colonel spoke. The one objection seemed to have decided him!

"Thank you, Mr. Giffard. I must of course consult my boy; it is a thing for him to choose. My own impulse was to remove him at all costs as I could not pay his way, but what you tell me of the task before him changes matters; it will be a big thing to have done--a splendid opportunity. I will talk the matter over with him and you shall know at once. I shall not hide the difficulties of the job from him, and if I know anything of him at all" (he spoke with a pride almost fanatical), "I think you may take it that they will decide him to accept."

As though half ashamed of this tribute to his son, the old man rose with stiff abruptness, and, holding out his hand, said, "Good-bye, Mr. Giffard. It has been a great pleasure to meet you."

And only pausing to bow old-world acknowledgment to his host's courteous retort, the Army man had gone, leaving the pedagogue with a certain puzzled wonder but also a large feeling of respect.

Outside, Dick was pacing gloomily up and down the path. That look upon his father's face, as he turned away, had somehow lingered with him, and this solitary stroll upon the deserted school site gave him the time to feel a bit ashamed. It was sickening enough, what had occurred, but it was bad for both of them, and there was no need for him to make it worse. . . . He was slowly coming to see the matter almost from the Colonel's point of view, when a firm step upon the gravel made him swing expectantly about.

"Hullo," he cried in very different tones and with quite a note of welcome in his voice. "Why, you weren't very long!" (Giffard is known at Sherborough as Longers; not from his height in feet, but for his length of tongue.)

"Wasn't I?" said Colonel Hunter, so gloomily that Dick was forced to laugh.

They understood each other perfectly, these two. It was a victory for the father's system that in this moment there was no need for any word. They came together naturally again, like two friends of equal age after some passing storm. No awkward explanations or apologies. They had never said much about the things that mattered (were they not both trained in a public school?), but each could guess exactly what the other would have liked to say just now.

Colonel Hunter saw that his son's better self had triumphed, and his heart was full of joy. He linked an arm in Dick's, and Dick knew that he was forgiven.

"Come on down to Waterlow's," Colonel Hunter said. Now Waterlow's is the School's pet shop in the town, and this hour of noon the due time for buns and a glass of milk.

"Don't think I feel hugely like it," answered Dick.

"Oh yes, you do, man! Besides, we've got our journey; come along," and he gave a loving pressure to his companion's arm.

Now it was Dick's turn to understand. He guessed from this insistence and that pressure why his old father was so set upon his bun. Waterlow's was an excuse, an easy way of getting through an interview that might be rather difficult. Longers had made his suggestion, and the pater was burning to discuss it. . . .

Indeed, no sooner were they seated at one of the tables in the little shop, whose emptiness spoke of the holidays, than Colonel Hunter set the matter forth, in just one-tenth the time that had been occupied by Mr. Giffard.

Dick, at the end, adopted the exact policy of his father at that earlier interview. Instead of "I see," he said, "Indeed," but after that he said no more, just gazed in front of him, absently eating a pink-coated cake--and thought.

Wilson's House--Wilson's!--or leaving? There it was, put in a nutshell.

To leave; he had realized what that meant, yes: losing Sherborough, losing Alan, losing everything; but Wilson's----!

Every one knew Wilson's; or, in another sense, nobody at all knew them. The place was a by-word, anathema. Probably, in its ten years of life, no one from any other House had ever entered it. Why should he? It held no Firsts, no Prefects, no crew men, no nothing! Slacksters, dirty slacksters, everybody said, and rotters too; with which they passed by very much upon the other side. No one it is true knew very much about the place; but no one wanted to.

And it was here that he was asked to go instead of the School House. A dreary prospect of endless games with useless footballers, of meals with hopeless rotters at one's table, of uphill struggle against odds, unrolled itself before his eyes, in place of all the jolly times that had been his. . . .

Colonel Hunter, with the tense look of a nervous pilot, sat and watched him raptly, divided only by the narrow table. His system was at stake. Had the boy got good stuff in him, or would he at the first test crumple up, as he had crumpled up just now? He would not guide him; no, the decision must be his; but still----!

The old eyes gazed almost in appeal at the young, worried face; but Dick was blind to everything except his choice. Leaving or--Wilson's! Wilson's!

"You know, pater," he said slowly, "if it's a matter of Wilson's, I really think----"

But of a sudden his father's voice, strangely eager, broke in on his words. He had vowed that he would not guide his son's hand, yet he could not wait! Surely he would not choose the easier, weaker way? No, he was going to say that he would go to Wilson's!

Man-like, the old Colonel found relief even in a conscious self-deception.

"As you know, Dick," he therefore began hurriedly, "I've always left the moral side of things to you, and that has been all right. I'm not beginning to preach now; don't think it; but so far, old boy, you've had a pretty easy time of it, and life's a bit difficult, you know, and here's the first hard thing for you. You've got to decide, which ever way you like, but I believe it will be good for you if you go through with it, instead of going round."

Dick made no answer, knew that none was wanted. He saw now what his father expected of him--what he thought was the strong thing to do.

"A pretty easy time." Yes; hadn't he thought so last night? House colours won in his first year; work no worry to him, as a scholar; every one decent to him at once; a Monitor while still sixteen; Firsts and everybody glad to be his friend; fags seeming keen to work for him, and almost honoured by a thrashing; lots of money; in the school's best House--things had been easy and jolly until now.

That was why Wilson's had seemed so impossible.

And now----?

He realized that his father's eyes were on him, as though awaiting the decision, and there was in them something, an appeal or perhaps a hope, that seemed to make the answer certain beyond the possibility of choice. He had behaved badly, he felt, just now. That look of disappointment on his father's face certainly had lingered with him. . . . "All right," he said simply. "I'll-- I'll go through."

That was all. To them both, even so, the scene appeared one of intense, unique emotion.

The Colonel, too, said nothing for a moment. He dropped his eyes, but not before Dick saw in them a quick glint of triumph: that other failure was redeemed. The system--slightly aided!--had proved a success.

Silently the old man held out the glass dish of cakes.

"Tackle one of these brown beggars now, old man?" was all he said presently; but no father ever said anything with greater tenderness or pride.

If news travels more swiftly at school in term-time than anywhere else in the whole world, surpassing by its speed even the mystic "wireless" of the Indian, exactly the opposite is true of a school during holidays.

Everybody swears on the last day of term that he will write to everybody else, but who wants to do that sort of thing at home? Anyhow, if he did want to do that sort of thing (and he does not), there is that rotten holiday task, which he might do now instead of on the journey back. . . . Besides, nobody will write to him, and every one will understand!

So in the end he waits until the first day of next term; and then, in a moment, the severed threads of friendship are picked up again, and very soon the home, which it was such a wrench to leave, seems something that belongs to quite a separate existence. It is almost a nuisance having to write there!

It was owing to this very definite line drawn by almost all boys between home and school that hardly anybody heard, during the Easter holidays, the news about Dick Hunter. Dick himself wrote to no one except Alan, who was puzzled to receive a short letter in which Dick merely said, "I am shifting to Weary Willie's, next term, to give him a leg-up with his new House; my Pater thinks it a sound thing to do," and showed no signs of regret or anything. And Mr. Wilson--the weary one in question--who was the other person in this secret, though frankly delighted with his good fortune, saw no reason to share it as yet with his House at large. He was no bad judge of character (whence his delight at getting Hunter as Head Boy), and had more than a suspicion that Medwin, hitherto his rather weak right hand, might not be the only member of his House to resent this importation.

Medwin, indeed, gaped in astonishment when the news was broken to him on arrival for the Summer Term.

"You will be glad to hear," began Mr. Wilson in the slow tones that had won him the name Weary Willie, tones wherein it was easy to suspect irony but hard to be quite sure of it, "you will be glad, I am sure, to hear, Medwin, that I have been fortunate enough to induce Hunter of the School House to come here for this first year and so give us the help in athletics, as well as the important position in the School, that we shall need as a big House."

Medwin was not glad at all.

He owed his position in the House to work, and as an Irishman might say, he had not got it. Technically he was Head of the House, but actually Wilson's was a genuine democracy;--every one was equal! Medwin was good at mathematics, curiously good: the story went that the very masters owned they could not teach him anything, and he had got a scholarship at Cambridge; but he was useless as to keeping order. But then nobody in Wilson's did keep order,--except Wilson. If there was a row along the study-passage, as there usually was, the most that Medwin ever dared to say was, "I say, you fellows, look out: we shall bring old Wilson along;" and he was always careful to be in the row himself, as otherwise even this might be considered cheek and be resented. Stone, in fact, who was easily the strongest fellow in the House even though he "couldn't bother about games," did come to resent Medwin's interference, and began shouting back, "Oh, dry up, Meddler!" This raised a laugh but hardly ever stopped the row. So Medwin, who did not know what pride meant, had gone to the House Master and explained that Stone was stronger than himself, and how was he to keep him quiet? Whereat Wilson, despairing of his House and resolving so soon on a change, had promptly made Stone a House Monitor. . . .

That had been two terms ago, and Medwin had been happier since then. Certainly the noise had not decreased; but if a Monitor were making it--why, who was he to interfere?

And now, when things seemed easier, he was to tackle Hunter; Hunter, twice as big as Stone; Hunter, easily the beefiest fellow in the school; Hunter who, he knew, despised the fellows like himself that were no good at games!

No, Medwin was not glad at all.

Logically, the master's next words should have cheered him.

"From various things you have said to me, Medwin, during the last terms, I have gathered that the position of Head Boy with all its responsibilities has not been quite congenial to you? I fancy that you found Stone rather a hard nut to crack!" (Here his eyes twinkled, but Medwin did not smile, for no one likes to be reminded of his weakness.) "I therefore don't think I need waste time in apologies to you, when I say that I have decided it will be easier and better in many ways to have Hunter as Head of our new House, though you will of course remain a Monitor. As to Stone--well, we shall see. . . ."

But somehow, Medwin did not look more pleased at that. His first dread had been dispersed; that heavy load of last year's responsibilities removed; but maybe his logic was deficient, or possibly here was another instance of the old law that man loves most what he has got to lose.

He left the master's study with a sulky look upon his pale, weak face.

Outside, in the darkness of the passage, another fellow was lounging against the wall, waiting his turn to go into Wilson's study. Medwin, always careful to be polite to every one, peered through his glasses so that he might welcome him by name. Then he started back with a nervous murmur of apology, and scuttled down the passage like a frightened rabbit: for the newcomer was Hunter.

Dick had no idea that this was the Head of the House. Medwin, indeed, in looks was much more like a weedy new boy, and nobody at Sherborough ever worried to know Willieites by name. Dick's chief concern was that the study was now empty, and without another thought for the timid ass who had come out, he knocked and entered, rather nervously.

Wilson's mode of welcome quickly put him at his ease. So soon as he saw who it was, the master leapt up from his desk with a most genial smile and held his hand out cordially.

"Welcome to your new House, Hunter," he exclaimed; and as Dick groped for words, "Don't try to say that you are glad to come! But I hope, anyhow, you will not be so very sorry, later. And I am very pleased to have your help."

Twenty years as pedagogue, if they had not melted his reserve, had given him a store of tact. Naturally a man of hardly any words, he had felt that something of this sort must be said now, and painfully rehearsed it; but that once over, he hurriedly switched the dialogue on to the plane of business and so spared Dick infinite embarrassment.

"Now," he said in a different, firmer tone, "we shall have some one knocking in a moment; I must see you later of course; but I want you just to grasp the situation, Hunter. So far as the discipline of the House goes, I shall leave everything to you as my Head Boy. If you want backing up in anything or any changes made, you will come to me. That's simple, isn't it?"

"Very," Dick answered and found himself smiling. It was a policy that suited Wilson's name of "Weary Willie" to a convenient degree.

"Last term," the master went on, "my Monitors were Medwin who is in the sixth form, and Stone who--well, Stone is a big fellow and was rather a handful for poor Medwin to manage. Perhaps not the best of reasons for making him a Monitor, but I'm not sure that it's not rather a common one, none the less! However. . . ."

This last word was seemingly meant to recall the conversation from its excursus on the physical limitations of the Rule of Boys by Boys.

Dick found himself oddly at home, so soon, with Weary Willie. He himself had not said anything as yet, but there appeared to be no awkwardness: though they had never really met at all before, the other was speaking to him with all the confidence of an old friend. And yet they said that Wilson was so silent and reserved!

No boy ever suspects that any master can possibly be nervous. The apparent cruelty of a form, which can spend a really happy afternoon at the expense of some lank youth nervous about losing his job, is due less to brutality than to this curious fact! Dick, relieved of his own qualms, did not think it necessary to consider whether his master had any. He sat in silence, and poor Wilson, feeling speech a duty, forced himself upon another venture.

"Medwin, of course," he went on, "will remain a Monitor, though you will take his old position of Head Boy. Stone," and here he paused expressively; "Stone will have a dormitory for the present. . . . After that--well, you will see, better than I am able. Perhaps now that you are here---- However, we shall see. Medwin will assist you as far as he is able, but he is not strong, poor fellow, and has very little influence, I am afraid. I think it will be a real relief to him not to be Head Boy any longer!"

Medwin, none the less, had entered Caput (the which is Sherburian for the Monitors' big study), with a face expressing anger rather than relief, and banged his hat-box down upon the table. Stone was there, lounging in a canvas deck-chair, talking to a friend, and both of them looked up languidly at this commotion.

"Hullo, Meddler," Stone cried with contemptuous geniality, not getting up.

"You're looking a bit sick, Med!" said the other. "What's up? Decimals refused to recur? Or don't you like the look of our New Home?" This was a far better Caput than that in Wilson's former House.

Stone laughed loudly, for he thought Best a priceless humourist.

Best, indeed, was his great friend and owed his influence in Wilson's solely to that fact. Ugly, brainless, of a weedy figure, he was literally no good at anything, and did not mind. Very precious in his taste for dress, he posed as a man of the world in a way supremely ridiculous to any one who knew, but good enough for Stone, who regarded his friend as a dare-devil cynic and, briefly, no end of a dog. Owing to this delusion Best was frequently in Caput. That pleasant lounge, intended by authority as a home for the Monitors, throws its door open also, by an ancient boy-made law, to holders of School colours; and Best played no game, with that fine impartiality which made him do no sort of work. Stone called him by the obvious name of "Worst," nor did he dislike his title. Indeed, he was still young enough to feel some pride in a bad reputation.

Medwin disliked him and wished he was not so often in Caput, but he was Stone's friend, so how could one say anything? . . .

"No," he answered, ignoring the alleged wit in the query; "but what do you think?"

"I don't," said Best, and Stone guffawed again. "Worst" was in his element to-day! He always seemed more amusing at the start of term.

"Well," stolidly went on Medwin, resolved to get his news out somehow, "Hunter's here this term and going to be Head Boy."

"What?" exclaimed Stone, suddenly serious. A thousand visions, none of them pretty, flashed across his brain.

"Chuck her up!" said Best, whose reputation never allowed him to be serious. "Then the band began."

"But who told you?" Stone asked, too anxious to laugh at his buffoon.

"Wilson." Medwin answered almost in an off-hand way. Things were bad, but anyhow, there was a sort of joy in telling them.

Stone swore gently but not mildly to himself. "Hunter?" he said, presently. "Hunter, of every one on earth! Beastly, conceited ass; always looks at one as though one were mud, just because one isn't in six first elevens and isn't keen about his dirty games. I wonder he cares to come here at all?" (Wilson's at least had no delusions as to the whole school's opinion of them, whatever they might think about themselves.) "Suppose he'll try to ram his School House notions down our throats."

"I wish he hadn't come," wailed Medwin, with his accustomed ineffectiveness.

Nobody took any notice of him. "When's our Reformer turning up?" said Best.

"He came by my train, I think," answered Medwin. "He's in with Willie now."

Stone gave a grunt. "'M! I suppose the swine may be here then, almost any moment?"

It was, in fact, at this very moment that Dick, having finished his interview with the House Master, opened Caput's door. He had been pleasantly surprised by this first talk with Wilson, which in some curious way seemed to introduce him, on the instant, to a friend. Weary Willie, in the gallery of caricatures which, school gossip raises into a tradition, had always appeared as slack, sad, and dirty. The reality, so different from what he had dreaded, lifted Dick out of the depression that had settled on him in the train. Perhaps, after all, things wouldn't be so bad?

But when he came into this big end-study, all his gloom returned.

Caput, in the average House, may be described as the social First Class. Here are the Monitors, picked men, with their selected friends. You may be sure of finding clean sportsmen and good fellows in a Sherborough Caput.

Dick turned the handle and walked in.

He had not thought out what he was going to say, as he entered: words had come easy, always, without that; but when the three fellows in the room all turned expectantly, saw who it was, and looked away again, he felt a sudden fool.

"Hullo!" he said in an awkward way. It was curiously like being a new boy again.

The tall, seedy-looking ass standing by the table, the same who had come out of Wilson's study, blushed and turned his back; the ugly, sneering little devil by the fireplace merely sneered; and the good-looking rotter in the deck-chair echoed, "Hullo," in a cool manner that was rank impertinence.

However, Dick resolved that he must be pleasant. He was here to do a job-- to build the House up--and he must not start by having a feud with the other Monitors.

Besides, . . . Dick Hunter always had been popular, and that, like any other habit, clings. He did not care about the look of these three fellows here; but they would be with him through all this year, and he did not receive with joy the prospect of three terms of feud. Long years of comfortable life had not fitted him for conflict.

Whilst he waited for one of them to speak, he tried to put a name to them from Wilson's comments. The weak Head Boy, he remembered, had been "Medwin," and "Stone" the rowdy fellow who had been made a Monitor because he was too big to manage. Well, then, Medwin was probably the weedy smug, and Stone almost certainly the cheeky devil in the chair. He could not place the sneering ass at all.

Meanwhile the expected answer to his "Hullo," beyond Stone's echo, did not come. Nobody shook hands, nobody took any notice of him.

"I suppose you've heard? I'm coming here this term," he said, schooling his voice with some difficulty.

Medwin blushed yet more red and became very busy at the table. Best, who felt that he had better feel his way a little, kept discreetly silent.

"Oh, yes," said Stone calmly, as though the thing were not of any interest whatever and no one had thought much about it yet.

"I suppose you're the other Monitors?" Dick asked again.

"I'm not," said Best. He was rather sorry that Stone laughed, as he did not want to make an enemy of Hunter till he saw how things were going. He had meant his remark to be ambiguous, possible as either cheek or information, but Stone had made it vilely definite. Hunter looked rather sick, whereat Best, realizing that he really had no right in Caput, suddenly decided not to stay.

"I must throw my things out," he said lamely to Stone, and went away to his own study. Inside Caput, an awkward silence fell. Dick resolved that he must break it. The more he looked at these fellows, the less he liked them: one an obvious rotter, the other no less patently a smug; but they were his fellow-monitors and--well, it would not be very jolly to be at loggerheads. If he must be here in this vile hole, if his father thought it the right thing to do, he might as well be comfortable. . . . A desire to tread softly on the hard way, after all, is only human.

"Who's that?" he asked conversationally, coming up towards the mantelpiece.

Stone, now quite near him, became suddenly engrossed in an old magazine.

Poor Medwin in the end was the one forced to answer. "Best."

"He's not a Monitor, too, is he?"

"No." Medwin wished he had said nothing. Now he was being drawn into a conversation, and he did not want to offend Stone. That, as he knew, was not a pleasant thing to do.

"I was only wondering what right he had in Caput?" Dick said. Everybody knew there were no Firsts in Wilson's.

No one answered him, and this, mere rudeness as it was, made him decide to carry the thing further instantly.

"I think," he said tentatively, with no suggestion of an order, but as a mere proposal to be discussed by equals, "we ought really to keep this new Caput from the start for only Monitors and Firsts, like all the others?"

Stone, accustomed to be lord of Wilson's and exasperated by what he regarded as interference so soon after arrival, suddenly looked up.

"You'll wait a long time for visitors," he said, "if you wait till Wilson's have some Firsts."

The tone of his voice was insolent, studiously, beyond doubt; but Dick, still thinking compromise the best way "through," ignored it carefully.

"Oh, I don't know," he said in quite a friendly manner. "We've got to buck up now and you can do a lot in a short time, with keenness. Besides, fellows are more likely to want to get on, if we keep Caput and things like that as privileges for Firsts only! That's the idea, isn't it?"

A snort was Stone's reply to this, a snort and a contemptuous rustle of his magazine.

Dick felt that, with the best will, he could not keep his temper for another moment.

A year of this! . . .

The thought carried with it a contrasted scene: the School House Caput, with all its jollity, its camaraderie,--and Alan.

Happy notion! He pulled out his watch. Good! It was only a quarter to six.

Sherborough assembles earlier than other Public Schools: "Boys must report themselves to their House Masters before 6 p.m."--so the School rule runs; and thus there were still some fifteen minutes to lock-up.

Dick resolved upon retreat, but he would go with dignity.

"I'm just going round to the School House," he said to no one in particular. And no one in particular replied.

Only, as the door shut, Stone broke out into scornful laughter which he calculated, rightly, would be heard beyond it.

"Great snakes!" he cried to Medwin, still terribly busy doing nothing at the table. "`Buck up!' . . . `Keenness!' . . . `Privileges!' . . . `School House!' . . . Silly ass! Where's that rotter Worst got to, I wonder?"

It was only when he got outside that Dick realized how angry he was and wondered that he had contrived to keep his temper. To be spoken to like this by a couple of smugs that no one ever even knew by sight!

His life, as Colonel Hunter once said, had indeed been easy, and he had never had much need for self-restraint. Those whom he disliked he had ignored; or if they would not have it so, a kick or two had closed the business. Now, with the wish to take that course, and with the strength of body for it too, he knew that he must not. These were the Willieite "big fellows." Here or nowhere were his friends in the New House. . . . And somehow that thought, too, did not console him.

But his irritated nerves were soothed, as he strode once again along the School House study-corridor.

What a different atmosphere, somehow!

One or two juniors, lounging aimlessly about the passage, stared curiously at him as he passed, and he said "Hullo, Brown," or "Hullo, Jones," or "Hullo, Somebody," to each. Then feeling that he was at last at home, he banged upon the Caput door and entered.

Oddly enough it was Alan's voice that he heard first of all, and in a moment all his troubles vanished. Good old Alan! . . . The world was not a bad place, after all.

"There must be some reason," he was saying.

Dick burst in.

"Reason for what, Alan?" he cried, laughing. It was jolly to be back among all these men again!

But whether it was that, as contrast to Wilson's, he had expected more, or whether it was that his nerves were upset, certainly his welcome did not seem as warm as usual. They had always been so glad to see him; he loved to feel that he was being loved; and now----

"Why, here's Hunter!" cried Priestley, Head of the School and House, who always used to call him Dick, and there seemed a kind of awkward chill in the small room, as though its occupants had been disturbed.

Conscious of this and wanting to get into sympathy again with them by making them renew their conversation (no one there, he knew, had any secrets from him), he smacked Alan violently on the back and asked once more, "Reason for what; eh, old buck?"

"Oh, er--I don't know--nothing much, anyhow. . . . When did you come down?"

Dick's spirits fell. He never before remembered Alan refusing to share any secret with him; and it was clear from everybody's manner that they had been talking of something important. Of course he knew that, officially, he was no longer a School House man, but surely this could make no difference in friendship? These, his best pals, would trust him--surely?--with anything, even if he did belong now to a rival House! He had not thought that anything else was even possible, or he would never have accepted Wilson's offer.

Certainly his entrance here had induced an atmosphere almost as uncomfortable as in that other Caput.

It was Priestley, seeming old for his age and always very frank, who made things easier in some ways.

"Is it really true you've gone to Weary Willie's?" he asked, going headlong at their grievance and returning to their interrupted topic.

"Yes," answered Dick ruefully; "worse luck!"

"Well, why did you do it, you old rotter?" said Alan in eager tones, as though impatient for him to vindicate himself by further details. There must be some reason!

Dick failed to notice how his friend hung on the answer, and said in an off- hand way, "Oh, I don't know. The Head was keen and the Pater thought it a good thing to do, and after all it's about time some one took the hole in hand!" He turned it off like this. He did not feel that he could tell them the real truth; that his father was a bankrupt, that he himself was taking Wilson's charity.

"But you'll still play for the School House?" asked Phelps.

The question came with prestige, from the Captain of the Boats, and everybody listened.

"No I shan't, worse luck," said Dick again. "I've got to teach the Willieites to play and get the Bat and Challenge Cup for them!" To be half in fun was the only way to bear the pain it caused him to say this.

"But I say," Phelps burst out, friendship for Dick overpowered by his indignation; "have you thought what it means? We shan't have a dog's chance of the Challenge Oars; our boat'll go down in the Bumps; we haven't got a man who can keep goal for nuts, and--I say, Dick; look here, I know you've got some awfully sound reason for this rotten notion--you always have! I expect the Head's been ramming Duty down your throat or something, but you know, there is the House and our boat's done for if you go. Chuck the whole thing up, man; you can do it if you see the Head at once. Your Pater won't mind and Weary Willie can get some one else."

Nobody had ever heard old Phelps so eloquent before. When he stopped, one could almost tell that every one approved, although there was no sound in the small room.

"I say--I'm awfully sorry," stammered out Dick, to whom this scene was yet more painful than the one in Wilson's. "I--I never thought of it quite like that, somehow, but even if I had----" He paused for a moment, not knowing what to say. "I'm awfully sorry," he began again, "but I can't help it. I can't possibly chuck it, simply can't. I must--go through with it."

"You'll stay at Wilson's?" asked Priestley, almost grimly, as though not able to believe.

"I must," said Dick.

He spoke with an intensity not far from tragic and nobody said any more. They all felt they had done their best.

It was difficult to talk of other things, but somehow it was done. No one was sorry, however, when Dick tactfully said that he must get back for lock-up.

Very sadly, he left the House he loved and went across to the House he despised, knowing that he was unpopular in both.

Inside the end-study there was silence for a little. Its occupants looked at each other, until Dick's footsteps died away.

"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed Phelps. "And Dick, of every one!"

"There must be some reason," said Alan with dogged loyalty.

 * * * * * * * *

Dick re-entered his new House even more depressed than when he left it. He had gone for comfort, and found only a fresh bitterness. It seemed as though, in a moment, everybody were against him. Even Alan had been different, and everything was rotten, beastly. . . .

Colonel Hunter, of the Spartan theories, would not perhaps have been so sorry as it might seem that a parent should be, if he had seen Dick's misery. Here was the hard, uphill path, which he had thought might be the best way for this boy, to whom Life's highway had lain always smooth and easy.

Certainly the old man would have been proud and happy could he have been a witness of what happened as Dick put his foot for the second time in Wilson's House.

Stumbling unhappily along the short but ink-black corridor that leads from changing-room to study-passage, he suddenly heard such language as did not meet the ears of random visitors in the School House.

Some one was asking somebody what he thought he was doing, but in words not given by Webster and mostly heard in Billingsgate or Houndsditch.

"I say, stop that swearing," Dick cried out immediately. "Who is it?"

"Me!" came a familiar, contemptuous voice, and as Dick got into the light again, he found himself face to face with Stone, who had a broad smile on his face. His fellow-monitor clearly thought that he had scored.

But Dick saw no need to retreat confounded. This was not how Monitors spoke at the School House or in any other House at Sherborough, and this was not how he meant them to speak in Wilson's.

"Oh, sorry!" he said, for after all the fellow was a Monitor. "But don't you think it's rather rotten to speak like that when every one's about? I don't see how we're going to stop them swearing if we do it ourselves!"

Stone grinned wickedly. "I wasn't stopping anybody swearing! I was stopping somebody making a foul row--young Eyre."

"Yes," said Dick; "but there are other ways of telling men to stop, aren't there?"

"Not that they'll listen to," the other answered. Cheek of this new man to shove his nose into things like this!

"They listen," said Dick, determined not to yield, "if you've enough influence for them to want to. It's only people without it who have to swear at them."

"I dare say so--in the copy-books!" sneered Stone, whose tones made it clear that to use such a sentiment put any man beyond the pale. "Anyhow, I've always managed to keep order my own way and don't want any hints from you, thanks." Beastly prig; preaching at him!

This was defiance, openly, and in its face all Dick's ideas of the need to be pleasant vanished. He forgot, for the moment, all the sequel of discomfort which must follow from a feud with the only Monitor of any power in Wilson's. He was sore with the pain of one whom friends misunderstand, and he was in no mood for insolence from Willieites whom he despised. He did not pause to calculate results. Opposition, so soon, strengthened him; the very reason why the Colonel would have felt rejoiced. To ignore this worm, Stone, any longer would be to encourage him in cheek. Useless to worry further about being friendly. Even for comfort one can pay too big a price!

And while these impulses fluttered his mind, Stone, noting the hesitation and building with complacent faith upon the new Head Boy's hitherto conciliatory mood, decided that here was the moment to be definite. Once and for ail, before this interfering ass got used to the House, he would put him in his proper place. He longed to tell all this to Worst.

"I don't know who you fancy that you are?" he threw out as an after- thought. He'd show him, straight away, that he would not stand any nonsense!

Dick looked him full in the eyes and took a step towards him. Instinctively, Stone moved an inch or two backward. Had he summed this Hunter up all wrong?

"I fancy," said Dick, very slowly, "that I'm the Head of this House and you're only a sort of temporary Monitor, and if you aren't jolly careful, you'll soon find it out."

Whereat he turned on his heel, simmering with inward wrath; walked into Caput; and took possession of the one deck-chair.

With the death of anger was born regret.

So much for his determination not to lose his temper; so much for his wish to keep on good terms with these rotters who must be his intimate companions for three weary terms!

Scarcely an hour gone, out of that long period, and he had thrown the gage defiantly before the only one of them who boasted any sort of power.

It was, he saw, the most preposterous of civil wars. What following could he expect, an interloper who came from another House to teach these Willieites their business? A few days more, and he might possibly have won some friends; even in such a hole there must be surely just a few who wanted things a little better; but for the moment he was a mere alien. He did not even know the names of any one but Best and Medwin, whilst Stone had doubtless got his subjects thoroughly in hand.

Dick made avow to keep his temper henceforth and go warily. That made, he waited rather nervously, though with a certain unexpected pleasure, for the first act of war.

Possibly Stone no less lacked confidence, for nothing happened. His voice was heard along the studies, murmuring no doubt against this interfering prig, and Dick, entering Caput, broke in more than once on dialogue that must be hurriedly, unskilfully curtailed. There was all the rumbling of a storm, the warning calm, but time passed and there came no tempest.

Two days thus went by and Dick, beginning to feel that he had overestimated the peril of Stone's anger, turned to more general affairs.

Weary Willie, true to his name, showed no sign whatsoever of embarrassing himself with that later, longer interview which he had promised his new Head Boy with a superb "of course"; so that Dick, relying on those crumbs of information and some few things seen, now proceeded on his own account to pass the whole situation in review.

Frankly, it was not a ceremony that cheered him up at all. No doubt there are maligned people and places that improve upon acquaintance; in the words of the old song, "you've got to know 'em fust"; but Wilson's House was not included in this number. The more complete Dick's view, the less enchanting did he find it.

Weary Willie's was in very truth, as everybody said, "a rotten House." There were twenty fellows in it, of whom four were new. These four, so far as Dick could see as yet, were his one hope, and there was every risk that they would take their tone from the old sixteen. These four were apart, together; but for the rest, there seemed equality, though not fraternity, in Wilson's. Medwin, weak and nervous, full of apology for even being supposed to have any power, was pleasant to every one, and Stone was impartially unkind to all. He would cannon a second-term boy into a wall with just as unceremonial an air as he would trip up Medwin. In the appalling uproar that was practically unceasing in the study-passage, you would always find Stone; generally Medwin, afraid to be thought stand-offish or a prig; and mixed with the two Monitors, the rank and file--any one, in fact, except the four new boys, still seemingly outcasts even in this curious republic.

Naturally, Medwin and Stone had no authority whatever, nor did the last-named desire it. Who wanted to keep order? He didn't want the study-passage quiet--unless, of course, he had to work! At other times he always made most of the noise himself. And as to power, well, he had always kicked any one who annoyed him and thrashed those who were cheeky, and that was all he wished to do. He had thought less than nothing of having been made a Monitor. And indeed, what is that to one who for three terms has been a tyrant?

The only person whom Stone seemed to leave alone was Best; and this not because Best was strong, for he was weak, wizened and ugly, but because he flattered his friend and patron by taking him for a Man of the World. Best, always immaculate in trouser-crease and splendidly pomaded, talked to Stone (whom he, and he alone, called "Brick"), with absolute contempt of every one except themselves. All the other Willieites were rotters! Who was going to fag to play for a set of swabs like them? . . . And so on, at great length.

The truth was, Best himself, though a vast dog in his own eyes, was utterly contemptible at sport. Put him on the playing-field, and all his grandeur vanished. Having learnt this at his private school, he had acted accordingly in Wilson's and at once expressed a deep contempt for what he knew he could not do. Of course in a larger House he would have been made to play, forced to be keen; but Willie's in those days held only ten boys, and Best's quick tongue had soon won him a place among this set of weaklings. Stone, the one strong person of them all, he won over by diplomacy and quickly brought round to his own ideas on sport. Stone in fact, flattered by being thought so worldly-wise, came in a term or two to see that games were a kid's business, and that a "man" was better occupied in knowing who would win the Oaks or buying picture postcards of a London actress with expansive teeth.

The House that he was in, he felt, was despised by the whole school as useless in games. Well then, how much simpler and more comfortable to get up on a pedestal as Men of the World, and gaze down contemptuously on those others as mere kids silly enough to care for kicking balls about! . . .

Dick Hunter, not of course understanding quite all this, was yet able to put his finger, so soon, on the worst spot in this rotten House.

It was utterly contented to be rotten!

Whilst in the School House, he had always fancied like everybody else that Willie's must be frightfully ashamed of being Willie's, and had really felt something almost like pity for the fellows who were forced to be in it. Now, with a shock, he realized that they were quite content and even proud, despising all the other Houses. Fancy being keen to win cups--mere pot- hunting! Such was their attitude of superior disdain.

They were outside the pale: so much they saw; but if one could believe them, they had no ambition to be found within it. Willie's was a House apart!

This attitude Dick saw to be the greatest obstacle before him, and traced it to its source in Best and Stone. He knew of course that there was no great scope for sporting supremacy in so small a House, which had few senior boys. Stone, Best and Medwin were about the only three above sixteen, for mostly fellows move on into bigger Houses as vacancies occur, but these were very happy where they were. None the less, the fact that one could not excel was no reason for not trying. It was easier to say, "Oh, we don't care for games," because in that way one did not seem to fail (one might have been extremely good, if one had cared to try!); but it was far more sporting to enter the ring, feeble as one was, and do at any rate one's best.

And that, Dick resolved, was what these Willieites had got to do. (Colonel Hunter, when forced to write his favourite motto in an album, always put, after Lowell: "Not failure, but low aim, is crime.")

He had no longer any delusions about the possibility of being pleasant. That little scene with Stone on the first day of term had proved the opposite quite clearly. This would be a fight.

And yet--because he was not used to fighting, because in the recesses of his comfort-loving soul he longed for popularity at any price--he told himself that the blame of conflict should not be altogether on his side. Thus did he find his excuse for further parleying after war had been so decisively declared.

Caput seemed the easiest place; games the obvious topic; a moment when they found themselves with no third party the fit opportunity.

"By the way, Stone," he suddenly began--not that it really was, but because he found the conversation less difficult to start like that--"who are our best men at cricket?"

"No one," answered Stone with easy scorn. "They're all absolutely putrid."

Dick laughed. "Well, some must be better than others, anyhow!" he said.

Stone did not want an argument. "We never play," he said, shortly; "except just small-game. What's the use, when we've got sixteen fellows, and the School House has got fifty-four?"

"Oh, I don't know" (Dick was quite cheery). "Some of the others have got only thirty-two, and we've got twenty now. Besides, if we're going to buck up and grow into a big House, we simply must play, mustn't we? It isn't as though we'd only eight men, and couldn't raise an eleven. We've enough for that and a House Boat as well!"

The last prospect quite failed to appeal to Stone. "We should only make fools of ourselves over both," he sneered. "Besides--we never have."

Dick was getting used to that last argument and irritated by it, too. All his suggested reforms were met with the same obstacle, "We never have"--the final refuge of the hopeless slacker!

Now, already annoyed by the self-complacent superiority of this Man of the World, clearly modelling himself on Best, he resolved by a sudden impulse to deal with that line of reasoning for ever.

"I dare say you `never have,'" he said, wrath once more driving out all thought of the need to be pleasant; "but then you never have done anything! We've twenty fellows, now, and we're going to have forty soon, and we've got to do a good many things you've never done. For one thing we're going to be a proper House, now. And everybody knows what you've been!"

Rash, but effectual.

The world-weary scoffer, lounging in his easy-chair, with socks displayed, suddenly became an angry schoolboy standing with flushed cheeks by the study- door.

"Oh, of course you're very grand," he flung out in the approved manner of the lower third; "but if you imagine we're such a set of mugs as to sit still while you run our House down, you're jolly well mistaken." And flinging his book down, he slammed his way out into the long passage.

"Compromise" had somehow failed!

Dick, for the moment, did not greatly mind. About these games, at least, he was firm and thoroughly in earnest. He would make Wilson's as good at them as might prove possible: what reason could there be against it? Stone's slackness had aroused his scorn and anger as a sportsman, so that for a minute after his departure he merely felt glad that he had spoken straight to him. Beastly slacker, not wanting to do anything! . . .

But then he realized that battle with Stone upon this issue would mean battle with him upon all.

With a feeling of resentment against a Fate which had placed him in this difficult position, he came to see that Stone was now his enemy. He must expect a trial of strength, on the first opportunity.

That last, as usual, did not delay in coming.

This dialogue took place on Thursday, and determining to act at once on what he had then said, Dick pinned up two half-sheets, that evening, on the House notice-board.

The first ran thus--

This created something of a sensation in the House, for cricket hitherto, with the Willieites, had been like going for a walk or buying ginger-beer; a thing one did suddenly, because one wanted to. It had never been organized like this, the day before, as a sort of set task or duty!

But nobody thought much about it, for Hunter's second notice was so far more extraordinary--

Now the meaning of this, to a Sherburian, was obvious enough. Everybody knew that Banners (from the Latin balnea) was a long cemented bath sunk in the cricket field's far corner; that one passed it by swimming four full lengths; and that only those who had so passed might row upon the river. But to a Willieite, who never wished to row, these were mere abstract bits of knowledge and Hunter's notice an astounding business.

Best was very humorous about it. He joined "House" to "Boat" with an inked hyphen, while somebody kept cave down the passage, and he changed "R" to "Pot," also with a hyphen. Then to an admiring crowd he explained that the Pot-Hunter, having resolved to win some cups for Willie's, was going to have four men rowing but sixteen swimming, who could pull the boat along. He said it would be heavy, as Hunter couldn't get a four, so had had to be contented with a House-Boat. . . .

He thoroughly amused his audience for a while, but presently, as was a way of his, he seemed less funny, and when Hunter gave no sign of coming to see his transformed notice, the gathering melted slowly off to other occupations.

Stone, however, heartily supported Best in his mockery of Hunter's notice and quite agreed that it was a pity, while he had the pen and ink, he hadn't thought of putting the initial R after Hunter, so that it looked like Hunter, Rex; as one might say George, R. He even spoke of still doing it; but Best was beginning to feel a little nervous about having tampered with an official notice even so much, and therefore put him off by saying that Hunter was less like a King than like a Nurse. Who had ever heard of a Head Boy worrying about whether kids could swim? He supposed soon Nurse would be cutting their toe- nails for them! . . . with much more humour of the same chaste description.

All this won applause from Stone, who got more serious, however, as the evening wore on. In fact before the bell rang finally for prayers and bed, he had waxed very martial, declared that they would be miserable creatures if they lay down under this sort of thing, and vowed that he'd see about it in the morning, after second hour.

Unhappily, he left out of his reckoning the fact that this same time, of half-past twelve, had been fixed by Sherborough's authorities as the season appointed for School punishments, nor did he recall that he had already managed to get up just one minute too late for Chapel, even without socks and waistcoat. Thus he did not reach Wilson's until five minutes after one, by which time Hunter had successfully interviewed all except one of those who had not swum their lengths. And this last one was already in Hunter's private study, beyond any chance of interference from Stone, who took a poor substitute in revenge by tearing up the notice which had done its work.

Quite unconscious of having roused this great man's anger, Dick was blissfully carrying out what seemed to him a good idea.

Of course the first thing, as nobody was yet an oar, must be to find out which of them was any good at cricket--whence the nets--and then, from those useless on land, to choose four who could be coached to row, after their fashion. But if Wilson's first attempt at a boat must be selected in this off- hand way, it was necessary that all the candidates should have passed Banners and so be eligible for the river. Ergo--everybody must pass Banners.

"Well, look here then, Eyre," he was saying to the last fellow of those who had obediently come to see him (owing to the unavoidable absence of Stone), "you'll turn up at the 1.15 Bath at Banners, like all the rest, in a few minutes now, and then we'll see what every one can do."

But Eyre, unlike all the rest, did not seem willing.

"May I try in a day or two?" he asked.

Dick looked up at him, prepared to be scornful; he did not mean to have any shirking among the juniors; but something in the boy's manner stopped the words upon his lips, and he glanced curiously at him.

Somehow, this Eyre did not look quite like a slacker. He was only in his second year but he was straight and clean and healthy-looking. Dick had already summed him up as a White Man in the making,--a Sherburian, not a Willieite; and thus this plea surprised him. Eyre under his searching gaze got pitifully red.

"Why, what's up?" Dick asked, not without sympathy. "Feeling a bit rotten to-day?" He did not want to bully the poor little beggar.

"No-o," answered the other, almost as though he wished that he could fall back on that so convenient excuse; and his truthfulness in the face of this obvious temptation further commended him to Dick.

"Well, what is it then? Out with it!"

But Eyre had nothing to bring out, and as he only shuffled his feet awkwardly, Dick said, "If it's only you're afraid you can't do it, don't you worry about that! There's lots of time and you say you can do three or four lengths, and plenty of the fellows can't do that. So just you turn up: 1.15. It'll be practice, anyhow."

And now the junior was about to speak, and now he would not; and now he made as if to go, and now he stopped. Dick, noting all this, was more and more puzzled.

"Look here, Eyre," he said kindly, remembering how nervous he had been as a small kid; "if there's any reason why you'd rather not come, spit it out! I shan't murder you, you know."

Eyre smiled dimly, but said nothing.

"Well, is there?"

"No-o," again, still more unwillingly.

"All right, then; come along at 1.15; and don't be a young ass. Clear out!"

But he spoke the words quite gently. He was puzzled about this respectable- looking youngster with the keen eyes and the clear-cut face, who yet wanted to steer free of Banners.

Well, he didn't have to understand kids--thank goodness! . . . So he pulled out his watch, and yawned.

Why, it was ten past one already! That little ass had kept him so long that he'd only just get out to Banners at the time appointed. Even a great man like Hunter dare not be late. Boys are allowed to bathe only at set hours: thirty minutes for each batch to strip, swim, and dress once again; whilst no one is allowed in who is not there when the due quarter strikes. These rules are enforced by an ex-soldier custodian with all the clock-work rigour of his service.

So Dick hurried down the corridor.

As he passed the half-open door of study number five, he heard a voice which he recognized, raised loudly. It was Stone's.

"Well," it said, "all I can say is you're a beastly little greazer, but jolly well remember you'll catch it hot if you turn up again, this afternoon."

So much Dick heard as he passed by, for the passage was empty and the words spoken loudly.

Well, it was a pleasant novelty that Stone should rebuke any one in language so comparatively restrained and almost monitorial; but Dick could not help wondering who was being hauled, where he was not to go again, and what possible breach of House discipline could brand a fellow as a beastly

Stone and Best enjoyed the scene at Banners vastly.

So, indeed, did a good many from the other Houses. There is not much happening between second hour and lunch, so that the distraction was quite welcome. Besides it was a novelty, this sort of informal House swimming test, and when Dick, all enthusiasm, began to sling one of the beginners to the fishing-rod affair and taught him how to kick his legs well out, every one was splendidly amused. Best got a chance of parading his Nurse joke before a larger audience, and many of the School House fellows, who overheard it and were feeling sore about Hunter's desertion, thought it very good indeed. They never knew till then that Willieites had any humour!

Dick, who had the enviable gift of being interested in almost anything that he was doing, really scarcely noticed the amusement that his idea was causing and for the moment was entirely happy.

"Funny old ass," said Phelps indulgently to Alan Scott; "just as keen on that as on winning a School match!"

"Yes, and those swines of Willieites are only ragging him," Alan replied with indignation.

Phelps, still bitter, laughed scornfully. "That's what he left us for!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, come along," cried Alan, pulling his friend's arm. "Poor old Dick won't want the whole School watching." It hurt him to hear Phelps' remark, just as it angered him to see Stone and Best sniggering at the fellow, a thousand times their better, who wanted to help their filthy House; but what could he do? Sadly he walked away. He wished that he could understand this latest move of Dick's. . . .

"Now then, next!" cried this last, quite excited.

Only twenty minutes to test eleven fellows!

How many had he done? Those who had not tried their lengths were waiting, swathed with towels, in the dressing-sheds, whilst those who had been tested were allowed to swim in freedom. Dick looked round and his eye lit first on Eyre, of those remaining.

"Oh, come on, Eyre," he cried. "You try, now!"

Once again he noticed this boy hesitate a moment before he threw his towel aside and hurried to the deeper end, prepared to dive. Perhaps he would have thought no more about it, had he not heard murmurs of "By Jove!" "I say," "Look at that!" and so on, as Eyre ran Tong, with laughter from a few Wilsonians.

Then he looked and saw what was causing such astonishment. Above and below the short triangular drawers that are the regulation kit for Sherborough's baths great thick red weals, always three together and with white flesh between, stood out in high relief upon Eyre's back and thighs.

"Shows the sort of hole that Willie's is!" said some one close upon his right, and Dick felt a personal shame surge over him. He was responsible for this, in a way; should have prevented it; and he did not even know whose work it was--never would have known of it at all, if Eyre had had his way. . . . A fine Head of the House!

For the moment he said nothing. All his pleasure and excitement gone, suddenly discouraged, he watched Eyre struggle gamely through the set four lengths. Even through the water one could see those great malicious weals.

"Well done, Eyre," was all he said, as the dripping figure ran past and every one peered with a morbid interest at his red back.

But later, when the test was over and all the onlookers had scattered, to talk of Hunter's rum idea and also to criticize this sidelight on the sort of thing that happened inside Wilson's beastly hole, Dick went up to Eyre's dressing-box, without attracting notice, and said, "I say, come to my study before lunch."

"All right," answered Eyre obediently; but he said it in tones of doom, like a criminal detected, and looked up with the eyes of a terrified young deer.

And when timidly he knocked at number eight and entered, anybody would have thought that, so far from being wronged, he had committed wrong.

"Look here," said Dick firmly, "I want to know who did that?" He pointed vaguely at Eyre's body.

Clearly this had been expected. "I'd rather not say, much," came readily.

"I dare say," answered Dick; "but I've just got to know, you see!"

Silence. Eyre looked miserable, and Dick, feeling a bit of a brute, decided more than ever that he had the right stuff in him.

"Well?"

"I can't say, really." This with an appealing look, as though the other must surely understand.

Luckily Dick, by putting two and two together, had reached a rather final sort of answer.

"You're in Stone's dormitory?" he asked.

"Yes," said Eyre, and his guilty confusion was a full reply to the first question.

"What was it for?" went on the cross-examiner, taking all the rest for granted.

"Cheek," came the prompt answer, without shame.

"'M!" said Dick. . . . "All right. You can go."

Eyre went--as far as the door, and then he stopped.

"I say," he began, with awful nervousness, "do you mind--you won't--you won't say I told?"

Dick smiled. "You didn't! That's all right. Clear out."

And this time he gave the order in yet more friendly tones. Decidedly there was the right stuff in Eyre. . . .

Then he went across to number nine, full of anger, not weighing issues or balancing results. He must have this thing out!

Monitors at Sherborough are almost spoiled, since beyond the glory of Caput, shared by all, each has a separate study to himself; and Dick found his man all alone, engrossed as usual in a magazine.

"Oh, Stone," he said as he entered, "I came in about young Eyre."

Stone looked up with splendid coolness. "Well, what about him?" he inquired.

"Well, that licking you gave him. Wasn't it a bit steep?"

The Head Boy spoke easily enough, like friend to friend, but words are not everything and his manner gave a hint of something more than gentle protest. Stone, however, was not frightened. Just like young Eyre to sneak (by gad, he'd give it to him!), but he had no intention of expressing sorrow to this interfering Hunter, or of promising to be a "good boy, sir," in the future. He must make a firm stand at once, show that he was an equal and did not mean to put up with anything of this sort.

"No, I don't think so," he said blandly, and turned over a page in his magazine. "He's a cheeky little brute and it does him good."

"What was it for?" asked Dick again.

"Cheek," came the old answer; plus, "Besides, he's a young ass, and a nuisance in the dormitory; always talking of his `dad' and so forth!" Stone was carrying the thing off in his most happy, Clubman vein.

Dick was not impressed. "I sometimes call my pater `dad,'" he said. "What's wrong with it?"

This rather dumfounded the other; it was unexpected. "Not in public," was all that he could say.

"No, I'm a bit older," answered Dick. . . . "But anyhow, even if he is a little ass, and cheeky too, that's no reason why you should half murder him like that."

Stone laughed contemptuously. "Half murder!" he repeated. "That thing doesn't hurt. It only raises marks."

"Perhaps you'll let me try?" Dick put in grimly; and, as the offer was not taken, "What is the `thing,' besides?"

"What's that got to do with you?" Stone blazed out in sudden mutiny. He only just realized that he was standing cross-examination.

"What is the thing? And where?" said Dick. "I want to see it."

There was on odd firmness in his voice, and Stone, realizing so soon that he would have to show the weapon, took refuge in bravado.

"If it amuses you to see it," he sneered, "I keep it down here in the daytime." At which he dived beneath his desk and from the playbox under it drew out the "thing" in question. This was a thick strap--taken, to be exact, from a third-class compartment on the L.N.W. Railway, as stamped lettering revealed--and cut at its end in three long fingers, after the brutal manner of what Scotch pedagogues know as a tawse.

Dick looked at it in disgust, understanding those raised weals. He could not trust himself to speak for a few moments.

"I'll take it," he said presently, and held out his hand.

Stone laughed scornfully. "I'm blowed if you will! I want it," and he drew his precious implement back from the other's reach.

But not quickly enough. Dick, believing in actions more than words, snatched at it and seized it violently, tearing one of Stone's nails in the process. Its owner let go, with a small cry and an oath. Then, recovering himself, he leapt to his feet and, trembling with rage, prepared for battle with clenched fists.

"Give me that back!" he yelled.

Then he looked at Dick, no less prepared. He knew the size of the goalkeeper's muscles, hard with exercise; knew the state of his own, soft from the lack of it; and could not doubt the issue of a fight.

Then--he sat down!

"All right!" he said, with a laugh, relapsing (not quite successfully) on to the old, safer attitude of manly cold contempt. "It's not worth fighting about, is it? You can keep that one and I'll get another."

Dick, temptingly near him, folded the tawse double with irritating slowness and slipped it into his breast pocket. Then he spoke.

"Look here, Stone," he said; "I just want to tell you, this sort of thing has got to stop."

"Oh, so a Monitor, now, mayn't even spank his dormitory, mayn't he?" came the gibe.

Dick refused to be so drawn. "You know quite well," he said, "that for anything serious you can haul a man in Caput; and for small offences you don't use this sort of thing." (Whereat he touched his coat.) "It's mere bullying of the worst sort and we're not going to have it."

Stone was at least persevering. "Who's we? You and Medwin? Or the Royal Plural?" Pity old Best wasn't here!

"Well, I then, if that's clearer," Dick said warmly, maddened by the other's calmness. "As you ask, I'm not going to have it; do you see? I! I've had about enough of your confounded cheek. You do nothing for the House, and if you think you're going to do this sort of thing, you'll find you're jolly well mistaken; see?"

He stood by the door for a few moments, panting in anger, with a very strong and human wish to thrash him with his own vile weapon; then, as Stone gave no answer more definite than a sulky expression, he looked at him in absolute contempt, and, taking the tawse with him, went across again to his own study.

Lunch on this Friday proved a rather awkward meal, especially at Mr. Wilson's table.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday; these are the "Full Work" afternoons at Sherborough; and this, then, was the first of term. From three o'clock to five --it seemed an interminable prospect, on a summer's day! In winter time Cæsar and Cicero are not, perhaps, so bad; but who could possibly feel any interest in them, or even feign it well enough to steer free of an imposition, on a day when the sun was shining, the birds singing, and everything breathed, "Now is the fit time for cricket"? How slowly the quarters strike, at such a time; and how ironical that distant buzz of the lawn-mower, recalling the cool field, the shadow of the elms, and making many high-born youths envy the free lot of a lad who steers a mower!

Besides, the present was uncomfortable enough, at the high table. There sat in state the House Master, his three Monitors, and Best, nor could one easily imagine a lunch-party more ill at ease. Stone sat in sulky silence, glaring out at Hunter; Best was nervous, placed between two fires and not sure which would prove the warmer; Medwin had very much the same fear, of offending either; and the House Master, talking gallantly on general topics, found himself wondering whether Hunter's importation would turn out a wise step, after all.

Dick alone was genial and at ease. His passage of arms with Stone had somehow cleared the air for him. He felt that things were definite by now. He had Stone against him, that was plain: and so handicapped, he had to make something of this ghastly House. After all, one was a fool to mind the enmity of just a single rotter! The House would surely see that he was only helping it along?

He found himself entering with something like keenness on his task, actually looking forward--though certainly without much hope--to testing his cricketers after third hour. Only by throwing himself into his new job could he forget what Alan and his old friends thought of him. . . .

Thus he was changed into flannels and out upon the field, tightening the net's ropes and so on, long before any of the others had appeared or were even due out by the terms of his notice.

Quarter-past five struck, and they were due.

Half-past five struck, and they had not appeared.

Dick was annoyed. Lock-up started at half-past six and he would get no time at all. Beastly slackers, these Willieites! But every one knew that.

He had just decided to go in and see what he could do about taking a first violent step towards their reformation when a white speck, running furiously, appeared far away by the boys' door to Wilson's. As it got larger and nearer, it proved to be Eyre. Hot and panting, but in fairly good form, he arrived, pounding along with eyes upon the ground. As he approached, he looked up and seemed flabbergasted to find Hunter all alone. Indeed for one moment he almost stopped, and it looked as though he were thinking of retreat.

"Come on," shouted Dick, and added sternly, "you're a quarter of an hour late already, you know."

"I'm sorry," answered Eyre, with the inevitable flush. "But--I was kept."

"All right. Where are all the other men?"

"I thought they were out here," said Eyre.

"Wasn't there anybody changing?" Dick asked, in surprise.

And at Eyre's negative, of course, he understood. Even Willieites could not be so late as this. No, they were not coming. They, too, had been "kept."

Like many older men and nations, he had thought too lightly of his foeman's strength. Now, of a sudden, he realized what Stone had been forbidding to the "beastly greazer"; guessed how Eyre had been kept until now; and was fully sure that he never would have dared to come at all, had he not thought the others were out here already.

"'M!" he said, with grim slowness. "Well, then, we won't worry about them-- yet. Put some pads on, and I'll lob a few balls up at you. . . . That's it. No, bat quite straight--you hit all across that. . . . Play with the middle of your bat!" . . .

Eyre as batsman was hugely keen, but horribly inadequate. The first quality meant that he would be all right in time: the last that the period would not be short. Dick, having bowled him out four times, caught and bowled three, besides l.-b.-w. ad lib., began to weary of the sport.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "you come along and see what you can do at bowling, and I'll have a turn at the wicket." Then feeling he might have discouraged him, and knowing this to be bad captainship, added, "That's excellent; you're getting better every minute. You only need practice."

Eyre blushed. It seemed his favourite retort.

But when he began to bowl the ball instead of endeavouring to hit it, there was really more room for congratulation. Eyre had never played in anything but small-game with a friend or two, for Willie's spurned House games; so that he held the ball wrong, took off awkwardly. and had a dozen little faults. But he had got the pitch and some idea of tactics, too. Dick did not despair. Indeed, when those small faults tended to vanish on being pointed out, he came to suspect that this Eyre, if he might never be a batsman, had quite the makings of a bowler in him.

It cannot be pretended that he rivalled Dick in bowling his man out four times, nor indeed was it to be expected. But if the ball travelled far too much to please a hot School House boy, who had been commandeered for the long field, at any rate there were some nasty leg-breaks, now and then, that Dick decided not to slog; and when--largely owing to a lack of rolling in the pitch--he suddenly found himself defeated and one of his stumps supine, Eyre was in the seventh heaven of delight.

"You're coming on like anything," said Dick, as they walked back to the House together. He was still giving him tips, and it did not occur to him as curious that he should walk back with Eyre. Normally, of course, the juniors would have gone away together, and he returned alone; but as there was only one, it seemed natural that they should stroll back to the House together.

One or two fellows from the School House, however, seeing the great Hunter and the little Eyre, duly blushing at the honour, thought differently and made remarks to one another; saying that this was Dick's idea of something better than themselves, or falling back upon Best's joke of Nurse.

The humourist himself, rather alarmed at having failed to appear for his net but safe in number nine with Stone, was making that joke once again, as he watched the odd couple from the study window.

"Here they are," he sneered; "the Nurse and the one and only Good Little Boy!"

"Beastly little greazer," said Stone viciously, once more.

Every one in Wilson's was quite excited to know what Hunter would do about those fellows who had failed to turn up for their nets.

Especially the seven who had failed!

Hunter, they knew, was about the strongest man in the whole school, so far as muscle went, and as to strength of purpose, his manner till now had not led them to think that he would funk. In fact, putting it broadly, the rank and file of Willie's began to suspect that they were in for an averagely bad time. On one side of them was Stone, who with a rich imagery of phrase threatened to "break" them if they were such "worms" as to obey the Nurse's notices; and on the other side was Hunter, who--well, what would Hunter do? That was the question.

As a matter of fact, he did three things, for the moment.

The first was done during lock-up that night.

He went into the study of each of the defaulters and asked him why he had not been out at the nets that afternoon. All of them found the question difficult, not guessing naturally that Hunter knew its answer, and all of them received a solemn warning that if they "forgot" again, they would be sorry for their lapse of memory.

The next thing was done early the next morning.

Coming up from first hour, the House found exactly the same eight fellows up for nets; the sole variation being the time, "3 o'clock today," the which was doubly underlined in firm ink lines that seemed to threaten trouble if ignored.

The last thing in this matter was also done during the morning of Saturday, after second hour, though not discovered until lunch was over.

In every Sherborough House the Matron's room is quite a popular resort in the odd quarter of an hour that falls between the midday meal and the time when it is necessary to get changed for games. Even in Wilson's former House, though the latter need practically did not exist, it had always formed a sort of halting-place on the way out. Some few have medicine to take; others want to buy stamps; one or two juniors, even, may have confided their money to the Matron, and come to draw a little out; whilst the "big fellows"--ironic term, in Willie's--lounge in aimlessly without excuse, as a due privilege, and indulgently say, "Hullo, Ma," before sitting on her table.

At the moment Stone and Best, with Medwin ex officio, were the only Willieites who could be said to emerge from the rank and file. The others were just rabble, like the unnamed warmen who eddied round the famous chiefs at Ilium--and it may here be added, were further like them in the way that, amid the clash of battle, they seemed sure to be the ones to suffer!

Stone and Best at any rate were there, with half-a-dozen of the small fry, directly after lunch on Saturday.

Best, with one leg on the corner of the table, was wondering how he could escape the penalties threatened by Hunter but yet retain Stone's friendship and respect, when suddenly the last-named broke in on his reverie.

"I say, you know, Worst," he said fiercely for the benefit of juniors present, "I can see from their faces that some of these little microbes mean to oil to Hunter by going to his blessed nets. By gad though, I will flay them if they do!"

"Yes," answered Best, forgetting his rôle in the stress of his own danger; "but Hunter's going to flay them if they don't!"

"Don't you believe it," Stone answered angrily and kicked his friend upon the shin. Silly idiot, spoiling the whole thing like that!

But Best did believe it--and he, remember, was among the seven. That influenced his point of view.

Everything considered, as he sat there, he decided that the sole way out of this dilemma was to persuade the kids to go. After all, if none went, all would be licked, he felt sure; if he alone went, Stone would despise him for ever; but if all the others went, even Brick could not expect him to stand out, alone! And so he worked for that.

"Well, I bet you he would," said he; "and what's more, he's a jolly beefy beggar. You should just see him when he's doing dumb-bells in the dormitory." (At this point young Sell, who had been hesitating, hurriedly went out to change.)

"Don't you believe it," repeated Stone, mainly because he could find nothing else to say, and Best just managed to avoid the second hack.

"Anyhow," said that diplomatist, "the Sergeant says he's got a bigger arm development than most Oxford rowing Blues." (Here Gwatkin, another waverer, faded rapidly away.)

Stone laughed in a superior manner. "Anyone'd say that you were in a funk! I suppose you'll go, of course?"

The last question was satirical; but Best answered it in earnest. By this time all the juniors had hurriedly followed their two leaders, and he felt that he must bring his friend round to reason.

"Well you know, Brick--I'm not sure. After all, I'm pretty certain the rest'll go, and it's not good enough to put myself into that rotter's power, is it? Think what a score it would be for him!"

Stone drew back and looked at him. "Sometimes, Worst, I think you're a silly fool." (Really, his thoughts were stronger, but Miss Barnes had a habit of reporting oaths.) "Do you imagine I should let him lick you, eh?"

"You couldn't help it," Best said, frankly.

"Oh yes, I could; I'm a Monitor, you see, my buck, and he'd never dare lick any one so senior as you anywhere except in Caput, and I'd get hold of that mug Meddler, and where would be his Monitors? Oh, you're all right. And as to the rest, I can't actually hold them down--I stopped young Eyre for half-an- hour yesterday--but I've told them what they'll get. I've done my best and I don't think they'll go." At this he glowed with honest pride, like one who feels that he has done his duty.

Best was instantly encouraged. He had not thought of that. The others probably would funk Stone, whose methods they knew, and risk offending Hunter, who might be lenient. (He wished, now, he had not said all that about his arms!) And if he did cut up nasty--why, there was Stone, a Monitor, to shield him.

The last thing that he desired was to appear at the nets, where he knew well he should make a fool of himself; and so, feeling like one reprieved, he hastened to put himself back into his patron's good graces.

"Silly ass, Hunter," he exclaimed defiantly, without much subtlety or point. "He won't catch me out at his dirty nets! I was only ragging just now, Brick. I'm not going. Not much. You needn't be afraid of that."

Stone rejoiced at this new sanity. "That's it," he said in encouragement, "and by Jove! if those kids go, we will give them a time of it."

"By Jove! we will," Best echoed, glad to find that, as usual, he had played successfully with the slower wits of his big friend.

It was at this precise instant that they discovered Hunter's third action in the matter of those nets.

Edith, the maid, came in with many giggles and exclaimed, "A parcel, Miss Barnes, for Mr. Hunter."

Then, with yet more giggles, she laid upon the table her parcel, which consisted of six long, springy canes bound in the middle with a bit of string.

"Well, I never!" cried Miss Barnes. Discipline was a real novelty in Wilson's.

Best, now feeling thoroughly secure, was quite pleased at this evidence that Hunter meant business with the juniors, and managed to amuse Stone by the things he said about it.

"Ha!" he exclaimed. "Our Nurse grows violent; the naughty little boys have been too naughty." Then he pulled out one of the canes, and flicking it so that it bent up and down a yard, cried fiercely, "Now then, sir, how dare you? I don't know what you've done, sir, but how dare you? Nurse intends to cane you. Where will you have it? On the hand, or how?"

Miss Barnes vainly tried to snatch the cane, which she classified as part of a parcel and her sacred trust, but Best was much too quick for her. He leapt around the table, vowing that she too had been naughty, and that he, as Head of the House and Nurse as well, must talk to her, also, severely.

Stone found all this very comic, and the scene would probably have lasted longer had not Dick chanced to be in need of a clean handkerchief.

As he opened the door, he narrowly escaped being hit in the face by a brandished cane. He seized it firmly and found himself, with it in his hand, confronting Best, whose sudden change of countenance was almost ludicrous.

"I suppose these are for me?" was all Dick said, and he addressed it to the Matron.

"Oh yes, Mr. Hunter. I'm sorry, I'm sure; but----"

Dick cut short her apologies: he understood.

Best stood, looking very foolish, by the table; Stone, with an amused smile, against the mantelpiece.

Dick in a leisurely manner slipped the cane in among its five companions, got his handkerchief, and picking up his parcel, moved towards the door. For one instant Best thought he was going absolutely to ignore him, and felt appropriately small.

Then when he had all but vanished, he put his head into the room again.

"Oh, Best," he said in casual tones, as though nothing had happened, "you're up for a net, you know, and all the other fellows are half changed already." Then he shut the door.

"There, you see, Mr. Best," said Miss Barnes triumphantly, so soon as he was gone.

Neither took any notice of this fatuous remark.

"What do I do now?" asked Best, with a comical look upon his face.

Stone looked at him in scorn. "What were you ever going to do?"

"Yes, I know," Best answered ruefully; "but you heard what he said: the kids are all half changed already."

This roused the head-mutineer to action. "Oh, are they?" he remarked. "We'll soon see about that."

But the first thing that he saw as a matter of fact, on entering the changing-room, was Hunter: so that he merely whistled a verse of "Yip-i-addy," and came out again.

"Coming to the nets, Stone?" Dick cried after him in dulcet tones. More than one, always, can be sarcastic.

Stone ignored the taunt and went back to Best in a fierce mood. Noting this, his ally did not dare to hint any further at the possibility of going to his net. After all, he didn't want to go; hated cricket, was no good at it; and if he had two Monitors out of three upon his side, he would be safe enough in Caput. To hesitate any further, with Stone in this mood, might be to lose his support. So with a very jaunty assumption of cynical bravado, he asked him what they could do with this blank afternoon, and was particularly bitter in his comments upon Hunter.

None the less, he was not inwardly quite happy. It was splendid to have Stone to intervene, but he wished he could feel more definite about the exact period of his intervention. The thing was a bit vague at present, and his irritated friend would not discuss it.

He felt yet less happy when, at six p.m., a notice appeared upon the board--

"Silly idiot!" said Stone in tolerant amusement.

"Yes, but what happens now?" asked Best.

"How do you mean, what happens?"

"Well, do I turn up or what? If I don't, I shall get sacked by Willie, don't you see?"

"Well then you'll have to, won't you?" Stone remarked with languid interest. The intervention, somehow, seemed to be receding.

"And you mean you'll turn up and vote for my acquittal, and get the Meddler to do ditto?" Best suggested hopefully.

Stone thought for a moment. "No," he said firmly: "I'm blowed if I do. I'm not going to encourage his rotten Caputs all about nothing, and I shall tell the Meddler not to either. The whole thing's absolutely rotten."

"But I shall get licked, then," almost wailed the victim, shrilly.

"Drivel, man," Stone answered. "What's become of your nerve suddenly? Besides, don't you see he can't hold a Caput if the Monitors don't turn up? A single Monitor hasn't the power. Don't start funking the ass, Worst," he ended, in a gentler tone. "You and I must keep our end up somehow."

So Best kept silent, but reflected bitterly that Stone's end was quite safe, because he was a Monitor. He did not feel so sure about his own. . . .

Still his patron, who should know, seemed confident all through Sunday that they would "score the Nurse off splendidly," and whispered to him during next day's breakfast that Medwin was all right and would have vanished elsewhere by nine-thirty. So that, though Best did not somehow eat quite as much as usual this Monday, he was not conscious of any fear, and walked with quite a jaunty confidence into Caput at the hour appointed, amidst the whispered excitement of a throng of juniors, hopefully trying to push each other through the door after him. Stone and Medwin were nowhere to be seen.

Dick, in the canvas deck-chair with his construe for second hour, looked up, expecting one of the other Monitors.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said. "Wait outside a moment, will you, till we're ready?"

"Right you are," said Best in the tones of an equal, tones nicely calculated to be heard by the juniors outside. With a self-satisfied smile he opened the door very deliberately, and stepped into the passage.

Stone was a genius! His scheme had succeeded beyond hope.

He only wished that the Brick's plan of campaign had not involved leaving the House, in case he should be sought by Hunter. How he would have enjoyed the idea of that ass waiting and cursing in there!

Dick, to be precise, was not cursing but doing his construe. Still, when ten minutes passed and no one had appeared, he came to see that here was the nets episode afresh. Certainly this fellow Stone did not lack enterprise!

Going to the door, he shouted, "Best!": then sat down in his chair again and waited.

Almost immediately his prisoner came in, radiant with triumph. Here was the cream of this "score," when Hunter had to admit that there could be no Caput! He scarcely troubled to hide his amusement.

"I suppose you won't say you didn't know that you were up for nets, Best?" Hunter said. "I told you so myself, just after lunch."

So the ass, seeing he was scored off, meant to save his dignity by ladling out a pi-jaw! "Oh yes!" cheerily--and loud.

"Have you any excuse?"

"I never play cricket," said Best, grandly. (Some one would tell Brick the whole interview, he knew.) "I don't approve of it."

"Well," asked Dick, following a rule laid down by Sherborough for boys in power, "do you care to see Wilson about it?"

"Oh no, thanks." No use trying to bluff him! A cool smile, like a slice of melon, spread across Best's face.

Then Hunter did a most astounding thing.

Very slowly, with all the dignity of office, he got up from his chair and stretched his hand up to reach one of the six canes, now on the top of the book-case.

"Then just go over there," he said in magisterial tones, and pointed at a wooden chair.

Best's face literally fell. "But--but you can't," he stammered out from a dropped jaw. "The Monitors aren't here, and you can't hold a Caput."

"I don't want the Monitors," said Dick, "and this is not a Caput, now. I'm simply going to give you a dozen for shirking, as Captain of the Cricket." He pointed to the chair-back with his cane.

In this emergency Best's verbal wit deserted him, for once.

"I see," was all that he could say. He had not thought of this!

As he put himself across the chair, his last desperate hope was that somehow the Brick might come back in time.

Dick Hunter was in earnest about games, and every one soon knew it.

Best, since his thrashing, was never up for nets without appearing. He had lost his faith in Stone as a protector, and though he disliked these occasions, on which he had to lay aside his superb dignity and look ridiculous as a bad bat or a worse field, he yet preferred that to another dozen with the springy cane.

He would never make much of a cricketer, Dick saw, but it was good for him to try.

Besides--every one in Willie's must do something.

That was the new, revolutionary rule. Till now no one had done anything, and Dick, reviewing the material to hand, was often puzzled to find things for some of them to do. He had chosen the ten least hopeless Willieites to make up with himself his eleven for the cricket ties, and now of those left he took the three strongest to support him in the boat, together with a new kid as their cox. Of the five remaining, Stone and Medwin, the Monitors, were two.

Custom ordains at Sherborough that Monitors shall be exempt from all compulsory athletics. Dick therefore could say nothing, if Stone and Medwin were not patriotic enough to want to help the House themselves. He rightly guessed that he would only be met with a snub from these two, one of whom could literally not play games, whilst the other was not keen enough to care to do so.

But, for the rest, there stood this new House rule: Everybody must do something.

And because all boys are sportsmen at heart, even if some may have been spoilt by their surroundings, these Willieites, although they grumbled plentifully and did not love Hunter, began little by little to get infected with their leader's enthusiasm; to play not only as slaves under compulsion, but with some of the interest of players. Even Best was coming slowly to learn the great truth that most things are only boring to one who does not understand them.

And the House, for its part, was getting an eleven. They were not good players; none of them, except the captain and perhaps young Eyre, who made astounding progress, especially as bowler, under the captain's tireless coaching; but they made an eleven, each with his own place and his own duty. Which was not true of many better House elevens.

This fact had one especially curious result.

Gradually, with every one obsessed by an energy however forced, Stone began to feel himself out in the cold. For one thing, Best, the only fellow that he liked at all, seemed nearly always at the nets; and Medwin, the sole person who was ever free for walks or slacking round--well, he was Medwin! Besides, Stone was physically strong, though in flabby condition, and would no doubt have proved quite good at games if he had only been sent to some other House or not been early convinced by Best as to the childishness of sport. He had been happy until now, but when once Dick had dragged his friend off to the nets and it seemed that every one was almost jealous as to who should be in the precious eleven, he began to wonder in his new loneliness why he should be left out! If Worst--of every one!--and that young Sell were to play for the House, and have their names up on the "Honour Board," which Willie talked of starting, well, he was hanged if he could see why he should not have one of their places? He used, at his last school, to be quite good. . . .

If "that swine Hunter" had asked him, Stone almost certainly would have refused, glad of a chance to score even so small a victory; but as he was not asked, he began to feel offended and nearly persuaded himself that Hunter had passed him over for reasons of personal dislike.

Thus Dick, sitting in Caput one day amid the heavy silence that usually reigned there (Best did not drop in, nowadays), was suddenly astonished by Stone embarking on a conversation.

Stone, lately, had been quiet, but Dick had enough worldly wisdom to know that this did not imply him to be any the less dangerous. Twice, quite definitely, the gage of war had been thrown down, and if no final engagement seemed to follow, that did not make him look any more for a prospect of continued peace. He rightly conjectured that his enemy--to speak in martial terms--was merely waiting an opportunity to strike. The attempt to keep juniors or even the dear Best from nets had failed; and Stone, he guessed, was not one to persevere with a scheme which had no probable chance of success. It is more graceful, for a "man of the world," not to care about trying than to be utterly defeated; so that Stone of late had contented himself by cannoning the small boys against the passage wall with even more violence than usual, when he met them in flannels, and saying, "Hurry out to your nice games; your Nurse is waiting for you!" or something like that. He did not try to stop them going--for the mere reason that he knew now he could not. Seeing, or hearing, Best's fate, they were more frightened of Hunter than of their old-time tyrant, whose glory and terror seemed a little bit to have departed.

No, thought Dick, with a wary eye cocked on him, Stone was stepping back to leap the better; and that is why, if he had been surprised that he should talk at all, he was literally astounded by what he had to say.

"Oh, Hunter," he began, with an unwonted diffidence that made Dick for the moment wrongfully suspicious, "I was going to ask you--how is the eleven shaping?"

Here, indeed, was something new; Stone, who had tried hard to stop it from being ever formed, inquiring tenderly about its shape!

Dick was frankly overjoyed.

That long-expected battle, with all its inevitable sequel of unpleasantness, might be avoided after all. The feeble side of him turned with joy from those gloomy prospects of a House, bad already, made worse by division against its own self.

There was really no feud between Stone and him, he told himself, except that he wished to make the House efficient whilst Stone aspired to keep it rotten. If that could be got over--and this question hinted it--there was no reason at all why, even if they never could be friends, they should not at any rate be friendly. Indeed, a justifying self whispered to him, a House's good asked that much of its Monitors. So that he answered very genially, and with secret relief, clutching the olive-branch held out to him.

"I think they'll be all right," he said in a slow, conversational manner, much as he might speak to an old friend. "Of course they want a lot of practice and a lot of fielding, too, and we haven't got anybody with the least idea of bowling except young Eyre, who really isn't half bad on his day."

And now Stone waxed even more nervous.

"That was what I was wondering," he got out somehow. "I used to play a bit at my first school--in fact I was in the eleven, I believe, and used to bowl a bit, and I was going to ask you--I was wondering whether you'd care to see if I was any good?"

Dick literally beamed. "That's awfully good of you, Stone! I'm quite sure you are, and we really want a bowler badly. I should have put you up before, of course, only I thought----" But explanations suddenly seemed dangerous, and he broke off. "I've arranged a practice game with Weston's second to-morrow, and I'll put you up in place of young Sell, who is worse than useless. It's really very decent of you to help us out like this."

But Stone did not want thanks. He was not doing it for love of Wilson's; he was doing it because he felt bored with being left out in the cold, alone. Still less was he doing it for love of Hunter. He did not want to be a friend of his! More and more, daily, he realized that he must keep in with the beast; he was so jolly strong; but that did not make him love him the more, did not make him any the less resolved to come out top-dog in the end. Apart from all else, it is not nice for a tyrant to have to rise from his throne and take even the second seat.

Thus Stone cut the captain's thanks short with a chill remark, and hurriedly left Caput.

Dick, however, did not guess all this, and was satisfied, counting the offer as more than the fashion of its making. He had, very possibly, got the bowler that Wilson's required, and there seemed some chance of averting a feud among the Monitors, that would be so bad for the whole House,--and so unpleasant to himself! There also seemed some hope for Stone. . . .

Greatly encouraged, he set out with a fresh energy on his task of regenerating Willie's.

Reviewing progress in this fourth week of term, he found himself far less despondent of success. He knew that the House was not keen, it did things under protest and in fear, but at least it was energetic. That was a step in the right direction. Of individuals, only two as yet stood out; one as immensely keen, the other as entirely apathetic. The one was Eyre, the other Medwin.

Medwin worried Dick.

Had he not been a Monitor, he would have mattered less. In the first place, he could have been forced to be strenuous, and in the second, he would have been a less prominent example of total uselessness succeeding. Here he was, a Monitor, with every privilege, and doing--nothing! Why should not slack juniors fix upon him as their model?

It was this last point that Dick resolved to put before Medwin himself. He always found him very friendly . . . in Stone's absence. The impression that he got was, indeed, that Medwin quite enjoyed having a talk with him, but was constantly nervous lest Stone should enter and catch him in the dirty act.

They were speaking one day, in Caput, of the House. Dick liked to flatter Medwin by consultation, and even thought it good for him.

"I think it's wonderful," Medwin exclaimed with sudden warmth, apparently forgetting for the instant that risk of Stone's entry. "It's quite a different house, this term. Every one does something." Then with a swift realization of what he had said, he added helplessly, "Except myself."

Dick felt embarrassed.

"Oh, I don't know," he said kindly. "You're darned good at Maths. It isn't every one who gets a Cambridge schol--and doesn't take it, because he's bound to get a better!" But then, feeling that now, when Medwin was at last beginning to realize his uselessness, he must not encourage him in self- complacency, he added, "You'll have to work like anything at that, and see you get it. Then that'll look well on our Honour Board!"

But the gentle prod had come too late. Medwin, shrinking and modest in other walks of life, became confident and full of fire so soon as he was given pen, ink, and a few surds or something with which to do his worst. Dick's tribute to his skill had roused something of that spirit now, and he gave a little snigger of self-satisfaction.

"Bless you," he said, a new Medwin, almost condescending, "it's not much use my working here! Old Smith can't teach me anything; he told me so himself. He only knows just ordinary Higher Maths. He simply tells me to do private work up in the Sixth Form Library, now, in Maths. hour, and as he can't correct it anyhow, he never asks to see it and I never do it. In fact now it's so hot I often go and sit out on the field behind a tree!" There was a good deal of the Best spirit, the blasé worldling, in the way he spoke. He seemed fairly sure that Hunter would think more of him for this.

Dick certainly saw Medwin in a new light, but did not find him any more to be admired therein. Everybody knew, of course, that he was a real genius at mathematics (that, they all said, explained why he was such a silly mug), but Dick had never realized that the lank, hang-dog creature was always hiding this streak of vanity inside him. He was disgusted too, being madly keen himself, that any one should be able to do only one thing well, and then not care to do it.

Ordinarily he would never have spoken roughly to Medwin, whom he, like all the others, regarded as a curious freak and not a boy at all; but now instead of what he meant to say, he blazed out, on an impulse, with hot, fiery words, inspired by the other's placid self-admiration.

"I call that rather a rotten thing to do," he exclaimed. "What's the use of being good at things if you don't do them? You don't suppose, do you, you'll get a schol by sitting still? Besides old Smith trusts you to do the stuff. And anyhow, Heaven knows, you don't do much for the House, and you're a Monitor too; so you may as well bring us some honour if you can!"

Then he stopped, hideously ashamed and sorry. He had caught sight of Medwin's face, and though he did not understand, he was sorry and ashamed. He did not know that to the unathletic Medwin he was a hero, to be admired, respected, his friendship a privilege, his every word of value. The strong, popular, athletic boy at school never does know such things as these; never guesses the influence, the power, the opportunities, they give him. Dick did not understand. But he saw Medwin's face.

"Oh, I say," he cried out warmly, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it. I'm so sorry." He had forgotten this rum devil Medwin was so sensitive. He could have said a thing like that to Alan--if there had ever been the need.

"It's all right," said Medwin, rapidly pulling himself together. "It's quite true. I suppose I am a hopeless rotter?"

And he hurriedly went out, leaving Dick to feel himself a brute, a prig, and altogether something worthy to be kicked.

But after that, this Medwin, who had nothing left to learn, worked busily up in the Sixth Form Library and sat no more behind a sheltering tree. . . .

Wilson, of course, did not fail to observe this new spirit of energy which was being born in his hitherto apathetic House, but he neither saw the necessity nor found the exact moment for saying anything to Hunter.

Weary Willie was not good at saying things. Himself not much more than a boy at heart, he found conversation easy upon trivial points, but when confronted with a moment that went deeper, was suddenly struck incoherent. This, which might seem a limitation in any pedagogue, yet probably accounted for the affection that he knew so well how to inspire. Boys could be sure that Willie would never hit below the belt and get emotional in what the House called pi-jaws. Everybody knew how these occasions, agony to either side, reduced themselves to some such formula as this: (a) the victim, on the hard chair, looking straight before him, silent; with (b) Willie, in the arm-chair and old velvet smoking-coat, looking at his filled pipe with a hungry and impatient eye, saying, "'M!" or "Well?" or "So--what now?" and finally, "All right, then," with the sound of a match striking as the door shut. And praise, of course, was still more difficult; so he said nothing.

His manner to Hunter made it clear, surely, that he was pleased? After all, he reflected, he had done his part! He had told the boy to come to him if he was needed. The boy had not come. Ergo, he was not needed. General conclusion: neither party wanted him poking his old nose into the business. "Rule of boys by boys," etc. . . . Splendid system, good for every one. . . . And he knew that he could rely on Hunter to do all things for the best.

Therefore he sat down, and lit his pipe, and saw to his form-work, monthly reports, parents' letters, and Confirmation, together with about fifty other things that he considered his own business.

Into Hunter's business he got a very intimate peep one night in this fourth week of term, when he was going round the dormitories and came into the Head Boy's, which was A.

As he opened the door, his eyes were met by a strange spectacle.

Seven pairs of legs, garbed in pyjamas of assorted hue, were waving in the air. Slowly and tremulously they sank to the earth, revealing seven red and rather sulky faces above seven naked bodies, each thoughtfully provided with a towel between it and the boards.

Wilson smiled in amusement.

"Hullo, Hunter!" he said pleasantly. "What's the idea?"

"Stomach muscles," replied Dick, no less laconic. He was upon his bed, directing operations, a hair-brush in his hand.

Wilson went out with another smile, rather more grim; he had caught sight of Best's disgusted face upon the boards.

Also, he felt more than ever that his Head Boy would do.

Stone proved fairly good as bowler and possible as bat. Hereafter, then, he played for Wilson's, and this of course brought him in touch with Hunter more than formerly. He was quite pleasant to him outwardly; but inwardly had not recovered from the pain of his lost supremacy or forgotten their first encounter and, above everything, that business of Eyre and the beastly strap.

Eyre!

When he looked back and brooded, as he often did; reflecting what he had been in Wilson's, last term, and what he was, this; his anger was directed not so much against Hunter as against young Eyre. Perhaps it is more sensible to direct one's fury in a direction where it has some chance of satisfaction by Revenge! At any rate, so it was: Stone, passing over the omnipotent Hunter, put his unpleasant change of fortune down to that young Eyre.

It was Eyre who had made that beastly row, at which he was cursing when Hunter interfered. Then when he had thrashed him for that and other things, it was Eyre who went and showed his back to the whole School and caused the second scene. It was Eyre, too, who was the first to encourage Hunter by greazing to him and turning up at nets, although told that he would be half murdered if he did. . . .

Somehow or other that threat had never been fulfilled.

Stone would have certainly been the very last to admit that he had been in any way influenced, much less frightened, by the Head Boy's warning, that afternoon when he had snatched the tawse so violently away from him. But-- well, for one thing, his dormitory was next to A, and young Eyre probably would yell on purpose; and besides, now that every one changed into flannels every day, the marks were certain to be spotted in the changing-room; and well,--in short, though Stone was always threatening to administer the earned punishment, somehow or other more than a month had passed and it still hung over the junior's safe head.

There are, however, other ways of vengeance than mere blows, especially for a Monitor who has the victim in his dormitory.

Stone was constant in his savage threats, and Eyre would have felt more able to ignore them, had he not learnt once that Stone was really capable of almost fulfilling them, bloodthirsty as they were, to the letter of exactness. Thus, wherever Eyre was in the dormitory, he was at any rate always in the way: "get out, you little ass," with a good clout upon the head or elsewhere. Then, though he was well in his second year and some were still in their first term, it was he and he only who must fetch hot water in the basin for his Monitor, wake him always at first bell, put in his shirt studs, lather his face, and do a dozen other menial jobs, all very galling to one who thought himself so senior as Eyre. He did not have the best of times in B.

Stone's bitterness increased when he saw Eyre's swift progress as a cricketer, Eyre's rapid climb to popularity.

Nothing so much helps to draw a boy out, and to give him confidence, as some success in games. This fact may serve for a small consolation to the growing band which feels sport-worship in the schools to have been long ago reduced to its absurdity. Probably, as a training for life, the Classics were superior to Cricket: even in these days, the Government does not allot its posts by a competitive examination in the games of England. Men cannot live by sport alone,--or only those few good enough at it to be professionals with ball or pen. Hence comes that sudden change of fortune, worthy of Greek Drama, whereby the scorned smug burgeons into greatness out in the big world, whilst a school hero, with his muscles flabby, pines upon a city stool. Yet even as he moans his lot and sighs for all his opportunities again, the fallen idol may reflect that if neglected books left his mind weak, the worshipped games have strengthened character, as well as legs. He sees himself a timid little boy, in his first term; recalls that earliest success, reaped in the practice "Junior House;" remembers how, that very night, the fellows seemed instinctively to think more of him; sees how he raised himself to meet that estimate and ceased to feel a worm. Then came the later, loftier achievements, with their fruit Popularity and all the fortifying sense of being a Great Man. Perhaps he never would have won that with his brain: he might have crawled his way through life, a conscious and admitted weakling. Better or worse, that, than to be the known fool of the family but have a tasselled cap hung over a fast-fading photograph? . . . Perish the thought! What one has been, one is, and few men hit the mean; so that he turns once more from the tempting Past to that confounded ledger. . . .

Eyre, at any rate, lately a nervous and bullied small boy, now that he found himself being made a cricketer, showed signs of becoming a new person. Nobody could have charged him with swagger, but certainly he was less diffident. Even his body seemed to show the change. Where but lately he had slouched along as an untidy new boy, he now held himself straight and walked with the firm swing of a young athlete.

Dick saw this and rejoiced: Stone also saw it and was angry.

"Take it off, young Eyre," his cry would be; and the accompanying kick or charge was received almost daily with less resignation and with more resentment.

Eyre clearly wanted taking down!

Then came the practice game, about Half-Term, in which Eyre got six wickets for just under thirty runs and Stone got none for twenty-three. Until then Dick had put his fellow-Monitor up next himself, upon the notice-board, from mere politeness; but the player had never justified that eminence, and this was a contrast too decisive to be overlooked. Besides, as a good Captain, Dick could see one thing: that Eyre was going to be a sound cricketer but needed confidence. This was, in fact, a crucial time in his career as sportsman. So far they had played only practice games, having drawn a bye in the House Cup-ties, and he found himself rather dreading the first match for this nervous Eyre. Quite apart from fairness, might it not be that the kid would gain confidence by finding that his keenness and efforts were appreciated?

This thought came to him when he was making up his eleven for the first actual Match, which kindly fortune had arranged should be with Gorst's, another of the smaller Houses. As a result, when the notice was duly pinned upon the board, Eyre appeared at its head, with Stone immediately below him.

This last came up from Third Hour, bored after a Full Work day and annoyed at the weather being wet, to find the notice up. Best, who was with him, looked anxiously towards his hero and saw the great man scowl. But neither of them, naturally, said a word.

"Coming out, Brick?" Best asked, as they moved away.

"No. Too jolly beastly;" and curiously unsociable, Stone went off to his study, where he slammed the door.

It would perhaps be wronging him to say that the Captain's action increased his grudge against Eyre, for that would be to leave him no character at all as sportsman; but certainly he felt extremely sore with the whole thing in general. A dirty little kid like that to be put up above him! He wished that he had never said that he would play the beastly game at all. Eyre was cheeky enough as it was, and he could just fancy the swagger that he'd put on, now! Next year, he supposed, he'd be House Captain? Well, the only thing was to take him down now, while it was possible. . . .

In any case, whatever his feelings, the chance incident of the next minute was unfortunate.

Somebody bumped against his door, and there was a shrill giggle, obviously of a small boy larking. This is not the sort of thing that any tyrant can endure, of course. Out dashed Stone, intent on punishment. Here was something to do on a wet afternoon!

The bump had been followed by noisy retreat of the fellow who,--it might be guessed,--had banged the other one against the door. But as the indignant Monitor dashed out, the Other One in question was there, hurriedly picking up a book.

And it was Eyre.

Quite a nasty, ugly look came for one instant into Stone's handsome face, and then the mask of cynical coldness returned. He clutched hold of the junior, in case of flight.

"So it's you, is it?" he said. "As usual! What the deuce do you imagine you are doing?"

Eyre was duly penitent, for this would certainly be an offence with any Monitor, although it might be overlooked: and he knew Stone of old. "I'm sorry," he said humbly. "Some one barged me when I wasn't looking."

"I dare say," sneered the other; "but what's a beastly kid like you doing up outside the end-studies at all?"

"I came along to see if there was any cricket." From the end window of the corridor one gets a good view of the cricket field.

"Well, there isn't," said Stone, seemingly annoyed by this mention of the noble game; "and I want a word or two with you instead."

Eyre, of course, would have obeyed if the Monitor had told him to go into number nine,--for who would disobey a Monitor?--but Stone dragged him roughly through the door, knocking his shins against it and pinching his arm viciously the while. Then he flung him, staggering, into the corner.

"Now, you little swab!" he said, and shut the door.

For one moment there was battle in Eyre's eyes, as he got up; and then-- Prudence won. Six weeks of cricket do not produce a Hercules, and Stone, if not in training, had been made in a big mould. Besides, Eyre, who knew that he had committed an offence, knew also that the other was a Monitor; and the striking of those in authority is not the best hobby for small boys at a Public School. Carpentry is much to be preferred.

So Eyre stood sullenly defiant, knowing that he was in for a bad quarter of an hour.

Stone had not missed the momentary impulse or failed to notice the clenched fists, and as second thoughts proved wiser, he smiled cruelly.

"We're getting very strong and grand, aren't we?" he sneered. "I suppose we think that now we're such a swell at cricket, we can come and barge at Monitors' doors, don't we, and then show fight when we're going to get licked?"

His prisoner did not reply and he abandoned irony.

"By gad!" he exclaimed, suddenly primitive and with a savage emphasis. "I've owed you a thrashing for some time and now you're going to have it, see?"

Eyre did not feel called upon to answer, but he saw.

"Do you hear?" blared Stone. "Answer when I speak to you; I don't want any of your cheek. . . . Come here."

Eyre obediently moved forward: a Monitor's commands are law, and he, as Dick had thought, was more of a Sherburian than a Willieite.

Stone had rather hoped that he would not. Half of a bully's fun goes when he is obeyed. "No, there," he said, and pointed a foot nearer still. And Eyre moved to that spot.

The captor thought for a few moments. He did not want to mark the little beast (next day, remember, was a cricket match, and Hunter would be in the changing-room), but he would break his spirit somehow. Suddenly his eyes lit with a wicked glow. He had got his idea.

"Now then," he said ghoulishly: "first of all, my merry sportsman, you'll beg my pardon for cheeking me. Just you kneel down there;" whereat he pointed to another spot on the brown oil-cloth.

But this time Eyre did not obey.

He would have bent across a chair and bit his lips to take another thrashing like that last; but this was not an order that any one at Sherborough had a right to give. He said nothing but he looked at Stone, and for the first time there was in his gaze not so much fear as contempt.

Stone moved apace forward. "Do you hear?" he bellowed. "Are you going to obey?" and once again he seized hold of Eyre's arm and pinched it savagely, until the other danced with agony.

"Oh, look out!" Eyre shouted, half through pain but also half in scornful protest. His tone made it clear what he thought of a man who played a dirty trick like this.

"Oh, look out!" mimicked Stone in high falsetto; then once more lapsing from irony to earnest, "I'm not going to look out: so buck up and kneel down. Do you hear? Are you going to kneel down?" And in his growing anger, he caught a lump of Eyre's soft flesh in such a grip, that the boy bit his tongue and writhed in the effort not to shriek.

"No," he said presently, as Stone relaxed his hold: "I don't see why I should. No one would. You haven't got the right to ask me."

"Oh! Right?" mocked the other. "I'll soon show you about `right'!"

He let go of Eyre's arm, and in an instant held his wrist instead; then with a rapid twist he turned the arm, until Eyre swung about and nearly fell upon the ground. It is the most elemental description of Jiu-Jitsu.

"Now then!" he said, grinding the arm round. "Do you intend to kneel and beg my pardon, you cheeky young swine?"

"No!" shouted Eyre, feeling by now that he would die sooner than say yes, even if he were only being asked to eat a penny bun. But also, in the back of his mind, there was the knowledge that, out of self-respect, he could not do this thing. And if he did, a worse would be at once demanded.

"Oh, you won't, won't you?" panted Stone, falling at length into the Bully's formula. "You won't kneel down, won't you?"

And feeling that if he wrenched the arm another inch, something must break, he cursed this obstinate young cub, and fully determined not to yield to him, threw him adroitly on his back, leapt upon his chest, sat there with all his weight, and twined his fingers round the other's throat. Eyre tugged and pulled at the remorseless hands, but utterly without avail.

"Now then, if I let you up will you kneel?" asked Stone, between clenched teeth: "you obstinate young fool!"

"No," answered Eyre once more, from mere bravado.

"We'll see about that," and he kneaded his hard knuckles pitilessly into the boy's throat. "Will you? Will you? Say yes, or I'll throttle you."

But Eyre by now was beyond saying anything at all: he could not even gasp his muffled "no." The look of sullen resistance on his face yielded to one of terror in his protruding eyes. He suddenly began to struggle madly, with the fear of death. Stone did not know: why, he was strangling him! Kicking, writhing, clutching, he managed to get his throat free for a single instant and in that instant his strangled moans gave place to one long piercing shriek: the shriek of a mortal who is in desperate straits.

"Shut up, you young ass!" cried Stone, and clutched his neck again.

But that shriek reached to Caput, and Dick, leaping up quickly,--for this was not a cry heard every day,--dashed into the passage. A crowd of juniors, drawn from near studies by the earlier noises, guided him to number nine. He rushed along the corridor, thrust them aside headlong, and entered.

The mind at such full moments is a camera: it misses nothing. Dick saw the form upon the ground; saw the face, literally blue, of Eyre; and saw Stone, sitting on him, panting in his baffled fury, "Will you? Will you?"

Moved by a human instinct, with no time to think, Dick struck out with full force at his fellow-monitor.

Bang in the centre of his face he hit him, between the eyes and on the nose. Stone, with a thud, fell backward on the floor.

Dick knelt beside Eyre, and began loosening his collar.

"It's--all--right," said the junior, smiling in deprecation as though ashamed of worrying a man like Hunter; but none the less he spoke with an effort and showed no sign of getting up.

"Want some water?" Dick asked, feeling about as helpless as most people on a like occasion.

"No. I'm--all right," said Eyre, and somehow raised himself into a sitting posture on the floor. But there he stopped, so far as rising went, and his hand hovered about his throat, as though surprised to find it was still there. Then, noting Dick's anxious eyes upon him, he gave a wan, apologetic smile.

Dick, deciding that the kid would be all right, turned round to Stone, suddenly remembering that in the moment's heat he had not stopped to calculate the force of his right arm.

Apparently it had not landed on one of the exact spots laid down by pugilistic handbooks for a knock-out blow. Stone was standing against the table, holding to his rather white face a handkerchief distinctly red. No thought of retaliating upon Hunter had occurred to him. Quite apart from any question of probable success, he had picked himself up from the oil-cloth in rather a new frame of mind. It came as a distinct relief to see Eyre sitting up like that. . . . With an emotion half shame and half resentment against the junior, he wondered how he could have been such a fool as to go so far. This was the end of his resolve not to mark the kid! But somehow the little fool had been so obstinate, he had annoyed him. And once he had begun to make him say "yes," he had been forced to go on. It was bad enough, having had to knuckle down to Hunter, without admitting himself being beaten by young Eyre. . . .

He suddenly realized that Hunter was looking at him with an expression of absolute contempt.

"Well?" asked Dick coldly, as though it were distasteful to say even that one word to such a cur.

Now, in some way that attitude of the Head Boy's had the effect of instantly crushing the instinct of penitence and shame in Stone. His one impulse was to self-defence.

"He cheeked me," said he, "and refused to say that he was sorry."

"So you did that?" asked Dick scornfully, and pointed towards Eyre, who now got up very shakily and as if, even in that state, he felt he had no right in an end-study, went back slowly to his own humbler domain.

"Well, I'm a Monitor," said Stone, in sulky vindication of this punishment.

"You mean, you have been," Dick answered concisely, and not caring for more conversation with him, went across to number eight.

 * * * * * * * *

Stone's face, with its swollen nose and adequate black eyes, was not likely to escape attention. Wilson saw it at Lock-Up roll-call, together with the scowl upon it. He also noted that Stone, not at other times a very rapid mover, hurried from the room so soon as he had answered to his name. He said to Medwin, who had read the order, "Send Stone back to me please, will you?"

Stone looked still more sulky on return.

"Well," asked Weary Willie, with ill-timed good-humour: "who's the victor, Stone?"

Stone was furious. "Your new Head Boy," he said viciously.

"'M!" remarked Wilson. He seldom said more, till he had heard both sides.

And he sent his next casual visitor to summon Hunter.

"Unless you want it, sir," said the last-named, "I don't think there's much object in my telling you what happened."

"I saw some of it," smiled Willie, who even at grave moments enjoyed his little joke, although it frequently was little.

But Dick was serious. "You told me I was to ask you for any change I wanted. I think,--if you don't mind, sir, I think the House 'd do better if Stone was not a Monitor? He could come into A, and only small, quiet fellows be left in B without a monitor at all."

"'M?" said Mr. Wilson.

"Of course, sir, if you want the reason----"

The House Master held up his hand. In unpleasant affairs, his general desire was for no more than he need have. "Certainly not, Hunter: I'll see Miss Barnes about altering the beds. I was only--thinking. What you tell me is enough for me. I trust you utterly, Hunter. . . . Good-night."

That first night with Stone as a member of his dormitory was not among the most pleasant of those spent by Dick at Sherborough.

Luckily, he had already become something very like a hero to those in A, who had felt no fear about being friendly to him in Stone's absence. Their conversation had not been inspiring but Dick had done his best to enter into it, and they, appropriately flattered by this attention from a school First, had gradually become less shy. It was the members of A dormitory who, by half-term, grumbled least at their enforced energy upon the field or river.

Of course Stone's arrival made things far more difficult for them. The despot of so many terms still had a terror of his own, and they feared the ever-ready charge of "greazing" to the new Head Boy. But all of them knew the reason of his fall from being Monitor and had no sympathy to spare for him; they also felt that he had grown less terrible by losing power; and it was something to be sure, by this, that Hunter was willing to act as champion for the oppressed. So that Stone's coming roused less fear and consternation in their breasts than it would have, one short term ago. They saw no reason to change their behaviour towards the Monitor of A.

Besides, when it came to a question as to whether they should talk to Hunter or to Stone, for clearly one of them was certain to be silent, the thing decided itself easily. Stone had never worried himself about general conversation with the juniors. When he had spoken to them, it had been mainly with a boot or hairbrush. So that when Hunter, finding the new arrival in no chatty mood, ignored him as in truth a new boy, and spoke as usual to the rank and file, Stone did not enter into any rivalry in that department.

None the less it was an awkward night;--Stone, even after Lights Out, almost to be felt glowering in his corner bed; Dick trying to be natural; and all the juniors nervous as to Stone's revenge:--nor did Dick look forward to a long succession of others similar.

Truth to tell, he was growing a little weary of talking to nobody but juniors, who half dreaded and half hated him. (He did not guess their respect, of course.) When he went down to school, he always walked alone, for who was there to walk with, out of Willie's? Stone and Best were quite inseparable; nor, if they had not been, would he have wished to go with either. Medwin always went down five minutes too early. And there was no one else. To the other fellows he might speak in his dormitory, but it would look ridiculous, even if it were not dull, to walk down to Third Hour with any one of them. So that he always went alone.

He found himself alone a lot, too, at all other times. Alan, he quite saw, had got his ties and friendships in the School House; couldn't be expected to come into Willie's; thought, naturally, that he had done a rotten thing in ruining their House boat by desertion. Dick did not blame him, no: but missed him terribly. Of course, when they met, there was the genial "Hullo" or just a little chat; and so there was with any of his former friends, but always with a cold restraint. None of the old jollity, the confidence, the silly jokes, the savage struggles which meant anything except that they were serious or angry.

And now, when things in Wilson's seemed at any rate to be progressing well, there was this Stone affair, with all its certain sequel of unpleasantness. . . .

Deep in this reverie next afternoon, he almost missed his name at five o'clock Roll-Call out in the quadrangle.

"Oh . . . Adsum," he cried suddenly, surprised by his own name.

One or two fellows laughed; the Prefect who was reading the list, glorious in a top-hat, paused for a moment, thrown out of his bearings by this tardy cry; and the master taking Roll-Call peered suspiciously to see that every one was really there.

Dick, unaware of this commotion, strolled off with his hands deep in his pockets; quite unlike himself, a slouching figure of dejection.

"By Jove, Hunter's got the pip!" said some one, and his friend replied, "Well, can you wonder, if he's ass enough to go to Willie's?" Whereat they talked of other things.

But Alan, noticing the same, felt more enduring sympathy. He thought no longer about the School House boat that Hunter had spoilt, or how annoyed the fellows were with him; he only saw that poor old Dick was in the blues. He waited till his own name was called, and then he hurried after him.

Dick was not hard to catch. By a sudden impulse, Alan came up behind him and slipped an arm through his, as in the good old days.

He turned around, surprised; there was something unexpected in that contact, nowadays; and when his eyes met Alan's they lit up with pleasure.

"Doing anything, Dick?" the other promptly asked.

"No," said Dick glumly. "We had a House Match--Gorst's; but now they've put it off until to-morrow." That was another grievance against Fate! Absolute waste of a half-holiday. . . .

"Come up the river, then?" asked Alan casually, as though they still often did that sort of thing.

Dick felt an absurd, unreasoning instinct to thank his friend warmly, but luckily he spared him that and answered in a tone no less off-hand, "Right you are, Alan. I've been coaching them the whole afternoon, and they must learn to run themselves a bit!" This was an invitation not to be refused.

As they came round the square and passed the juniors still waiting to go on for "Rollers," he called to Eyre and said, "Oh, I'm just going up the river. You must coach the fellows for a bit, and give them a few tips." And as Eyre looked up at him in mere astonishment: "You'll have to do it next year, anyhow!" Whereat Eyre blushed in his best manner. (He had been less free with this trick of late.)

Still arm in arm, the two friends ran down the school bank. There is always a boat of some sort for a Crew-man, though others have to ballot for the privilege.

Alan took the sculls, but when they had gone only half-a-mile, he silently turned the boat's nose into shore at a spot where some trees fell over and made a thick, green, restful canopy.

"Chuck me a cushion, Dick!" he cried. Obviously he did not plan an energetic afternoon.

"Jove!" he said contentedly, nestling down into a restful curve, "it is ripping to be here like this!"

Dick understood. "Ripping." was all he said, but he said it with emphasis.

A happy silence fell. The two old friends were friends again, and everything was mended in those few simple words. Each realized, now, how much he had missed the other.

"How is Willie's getting on?" asked Alan presently. The question did not seem odd to either of them any longer, nor did it rouse unpleasant memories.

"Oh, they're really coming on," Dick answered with tolerance; "they'll be all right in time."

Alan laughed merrily. "In time! But meanwhile--aren't you just a bit fed up?"

"Fed up?" All Dick's pent-up sufferings of weeks suddenly found outlet in words. "I should think I was! You don't know what it's like, old man--no one to talk to, no rags, nothing. Just like being a beastly school-master! Keeping every one up to the mark, and all of them hating it and hating you. . . . I wouldn't mind if they weren't such a set of rotters. . . ."

He stopped abruptly, repenting of this outburst to which he had been encouraged by his friend's sympathy.

"Don't you think," said Alan slowly; "don't you think, when you've done a term of it, you could come back to the School House? That'll satisfy your pater, surely, and old Giffard 'll only be too keen to have you back again, and we--you're awfully missed in the House, Dick."

All this was like torture to its hearer.

"I wish I could, Alan," he said dully. "But I can't."

There was another silence, but not the contented silence of pure friendship with no need for speech. They said nothing, now, because they did not know what they could say. And in a moment the whole joy of their afternoon had vanished, the green arbour seemed damp, and even the sun glinted less happily upon the water. Their old misunderstanding had returned.

But those last minutes had been too splendid, too like the past, for Alan to endure things being different again.

"Look here, Dick," he suddenly began with a directness rare in him, as it is rare in every boy; "tell me what it is that's up?"

"How `up'?" asked the other, seeking time to recover from this frontal attack.

But Alan would not be deterred. "Why you went to Willie's? Don't tell me you chucked the boat and everything because Giffard and your pater `thought it a sound thing to do'; it isn't good enough! . . . Come on, Dick? Tell me? . . . I swear I won't let anybody know; but you must just tell me. It isn't fair, you know. . . ."

What fellow could resist that final accusation? Besides, Dick saw the old gulf, lately spanned, opening afresh between himself and Alan.

He told the whole story: his father's ruin, Wilson's offer, and his own decision. "So I am paid to do it!" he ended bitterly; and then before Alan could say anything, he put in, "And you swear you will tell no one, won't you?"

"No one," echoed Alan solemnly; and meant it.

But what a relief!

He had always known, of course, that his friend would not have deserted the House for a whim, had said to Phelps at once, "There must be some reason;" had stuck up for Hunter--but what a relief, in such a case, to be entirely sure! Phelps and the others, some day, would find that they had wronged old Dick.

And thus that evening in the School House Caput he spoke with greater warmth when Phelps, debating how to make the final order of his crew for the approaching Bumping Races, muttered, "All the fault of that ass Hunter and his dear Willieites!"

"You've no right to say that," cried Alan in quite a youthful way. "How do you know it's his fault?"

"How do you know it isn't?" asked Priestley who, as a Prefect, loved a verbal "score"; and some of the others laughed.

"Oh, of course it's not his fault," sneered Phelps with cheap irony. "Oh dear, no! How could he help leaving us? I've only just helped it, myself! I may go any moment, almost! I feel myself going! Hold me, somebody!"

Alan glared at him, his temper rising. He hated them to speak like this of Dick.

"What could make a fellow change his House?" asked the judicial Priestley, and everybody waited for the answer.

"Tons of things," cried Alan, and then stopped. He could not think of one.

"As, for example----?" from the scoffing questioner.

"Well, for example," Alan said with anger; "what if his pater went smash and the other House master offered him to come free as Head Boy? I suppose you'd call that the fellow's fault, because he didn't leave the School as well?" He must score off this sarcastic beast somehow! And he could think of nothing else. In the next instant he could have bitten out his tongue.

Priestley was defeated. "Oh, that, I dare say," he muttered, with vague discontent.

In one moment Caput would have been discussing something else. But a note in Alan's voice and something plausible about the story made Phelps think again. He never had believed, quite, that old Dick----

"By Jove! though," he cried, looking up, "Dick's pater didn't really go smash, did he?"

"I didn't say so," Alan quickly answered. Something in his code of honour did not allow him to say No. And his confusion told the rest.

"Poor old Dick," said Phelps softly. "Rough luck! What cads we've all been. . . ."

Alan, somehow, could not feel altogether sorry that they knew.

"But you must swear," he said in a most solemn manner, "not to tell any one, not even Dick, that I have told you."

Willie's were actually winning!

To understand properly the delirious excitement, even of those fielding, one must remember that the House had never won anything before. It was a new experience.

Content to be set down as rotters up to now, they had never realized the pleasure of achievement till this moment. And here they were--actually!--in the second round; and winning. . . . That in the first round they had been drawn a bye and in the second were meeting Gorst's, a House smaller than themselves, could make no difference at all. Facts are facts, and they were in the second round.

Also, distinctly, they were winning.

They had won if they got Gorst's out for anything less than thirty-seven in their second innings (the scoring had not been extremely heavy); and though it was true that Gorst's had only twelve of these to make, it was yet more palpable that the two men now at the wickets were as bad as they could be, and the sole other to come in was generally reputed to be rather worse.

Thus the excitement was prodigious. Gorstites bellowed, "Now, then," and "No, no," or "Steady," whenever either of the nervous and bewildered youngsters, stopping the ball with his bat in mere self-defence, caused it to bound for half-a-dozen yards. And the few Willieites not playing sat in a grim silence, waiting for the delirious moment when they could yell, "Caught, sir," or "Well bowled!" They had never been keen at any match before. . . . Wilson felt that at last he was starting life.

Only two people in his House were at all dissatisfied, and one of these was Dick.

No doubt they were winning, right enough; unless, that was, the last man in proved better than his reputation; but this was not everything, for a House with no possible chance of the Challenge Bat, and the match had not gone in the least how he expected.

For one thing, there had been no skill. Wilson's runs, he guiltily admitted, had been mainly due to his blind, Boat-Club slogging; their creditable bowling-analysis to his swift balls, that terrified Gorst's kids. And Stone, to a less degree, had followed the same policy.

These two, one might almost say, had made the runs; and certainly had taken all the wickets. Gorst's, on both occasions, had had a short innings, and there had been no need to change the bowling. Once, in the first innings, he had put Eyre on for a little: but he had not been a success. In short, and bluntly, he had been a failure.

Eyre: yes, that was where Dick found himself dissatisfied, or disappointed. His one scientific cricketer, his Captain for next year, had failed, in this so violent match. Those nerves, that Dick had dreaded, had played him false indeed in his first match before a watching crowd. It was not only that he had bowled badly. His scores stood upon record as 0 and 1, whilst he had dropped two catches.

Thus--will it be guessed?--the other person not quite satisfied was Eyre.

He had wanted so terribly badly to play well, to help Wilson's, to show Hunter that his coaching at the nets had not been wasted. Perhaps, even, that was partly why he failed: over-anxiety had spoilt his confidence. At any rate, fail he did dismally, as bowler, as batsman, and as field. His last dropped catch had caused a "Whew!" to go round the spectators, whilst some of his friends, also fielding, had cried, "Butter-fingers!" and Best, quite superior to such a private-school remark, had loudly classed it as a sitter.

So now Eyre stood in utter misery, on the tomb of his dead hopes; almost praying that nobody would spoon him up another easy catch. He knew that he would miss it! His confidence was gone.

Dick guessed this, and was sorry.

He knew that this disconsolate little person, bowed under his failure, had the makings in him of a cricketer fifty times superior to any of these happily scornful Willieites who, upon paper, had certainly done better. He lacked confidence,--had he not known that?--this boy with his shy blush; and if anything could make him lack it permanently, it was such an experience as to- day's. Dick had trusted to success in this, his first Match, to effect the opposite. Now it was almost over, and the best that one could hope was that he should not miss another catch.

Unless----

Dick suddenly had an idea.

There were two wickets still to fall. He had not given Eyre a proper chance. He had put Stone on first; partly, perhaps, because he feared another policy might be set down to personal dislike; and Stone had justified his choice too thoroughly to take him off. Yet if young Eyre could only have his chance,--and take it,--what a difference!

Dick knew that here was a crisis in the making of a sportsman.

Even without a change of bowling, the Gorstites might just win; these two quite useless men were poking valiantly, and snicked a one at intervals amidst uproarious applause; and then Eyre would not have another match to play in till next year.

And next year he would be House Captain! Where was that needed confidence to come from? Why, Dick had even hoped, so full of belief was he in his new "find," that the School Captain might have noticed Eyre's bowling in this match and put him up for Junior or Middle Game. . . .

His mind seething with his idea, weighing its points carefully, he bowled a ball that even the Gorstite could tell was off the wicket. Out was flung the bat at random, and away the ball danced off it for--so please you!--two. The batsman never in his life had hit more than a one before.

Over! and Dick threw the ball across, much to the relief of the bold slogger, who vaguely felt that there must be some awful retribution for any one who hit a Crew-man like that.

The sportsman at the other end, adopting as his motto "Defence, not Defiance," doggedly blocked the balls that happened to be straight, and warily ignored the others with an air of wisdom.

Stone was credited with his first Maiden Over.

Dick could not take him off for that! Besides, Stone's analysis would only show one run hit off him since he took his last wicket. Yet----

The Captain of Wilson's picked up the ball thrown across to him, and then, as though discouraged by being hit for two, cried, "Eyre," and threw it to that unexpectant junior, who luckily contrived to catch it.

The look in his eyes,--half gratitude, half fear,--told Dick that his calculations were not wrong.

The onlookers, who could not guess the Captain's strategy, were no less than astounded. Hunter, doing so well, to take himself off for Eyre, who'd had that ghastly over in the other innings? And Stone said, "Oh, I say," and something else, in a loud voice.

But Eyre, feeling that here was a moment when one must justify one's choice or die, walked to the wicket with a new joy in life. It never occurred to him, of course, to suspect a charity. Hunter had thought that he could bowl this fellow out; Hunter had thought that he was good enough: and though he doubted it, himself, he must be! He was a rotten cricketer, but Hunter was a perfect captain.

Surprise and the revulsion shook from him all memory of earlier failure. Never, in all his cricket days, did Phil Eyre bowl a ball with such confidence as this! He thought of every rule: but also he put all his will behind it.

The nervous batsman felt that he had been reprieved. Two, indeed? This should go for four! Young Eyre, indeed! . . .

So out he hit, to do that trick again.

Unluckily, this ball was straight. . . . When he looked round for it, he only saw one of his stumps upon the ground.

Then the Willieites forgot their grievance. Straw-hats (other people's) went up in the air, and backs (ditto) were thumped with violence, and everybody roared till he was hoarse.

Out went the last man, amid mock applause. He was a boating man, and everybody knew that he was not a batsman.

"Eyre'll pip him in a moment," they said, quite oblivious of their recent scorn for that successful bowler.

Eyre, himself, drunk with success so close on failure, resolved upon the same. He saw himself repeating his late trick, and bowled with equal confidence.

Of course, these things "don't happen."

Instead, the lusty boating man, with closed eyes and wide-opened shoulders, struck out at space and happened incidentally to hit the ball.

Now it was for the Gorstites to yell.

"Run it out!" "Run up!" they yelled. "Two!" they counted, gloating. "Three!" "FOUR!" And in a rather unkind way, they roared with laughter.

"Only three to equalize," they murmured, as if half afraid lest the Willieites should overhear and make a special effort; whilst some said, "Four to win!"

And so it was, with this four and the two and those snatched single runs.

Eyre, suspecting it, bowled with especial care and skill; a nasty ball, to land near up and with an awkward twist.

But what cared the blind boating man? Fate favoured him, since he dashed out and caught it before that unsuspected twist began.

All the cries rose up again. But this time, they stopped short at "Three!"

"Equal!" said the Gorstites, in triumphant whispers. They settled down to watch their other man, whose speciality was stopping the ball anyhow.

Unhappily, he was not of a subtlety to understand Eyre's breaks, that Hunter so admired; and though he duly smote the earth, self-satisfied, with a straight bat, he did so straight in front of a spread-eagled wicket.

Then, in turn, the Willieites grew shrill, but only with a joy half pain. They had saved the game: but they could easily have won it. Why had Hunter taken himself off? He never would have been slogged in that way: the Gorstites funked him. It was simply sickening.

"Just like him," said Stone, in a philosophic way. He said this, not because Hunter's past justified the charge at all, but because it delighted him to see the House turning against his rival, whom by now they had almost seemed to like. He began to find hope for the future, and stoked their protests cleverly. "Simply chucked our match away," . . . with much more of a like description.

Dick, walking away alone to the Pavilion, was well content.

He might have chucked a match away; but he had made a cricketer.

The days that followed the historic match against Gorst's proved the hardest of this term for Dick.

Stone was so far successful in giving a wrong colour to the episode that in a few hours he had managed to turn against the new Head Boy that sympathy, which by his keenness and good humour Dick had all but enlisted on his own behalf.

The Willieites had been winning easily till Hunter took himself off and put young Eyre on, merely to reward him for his greazing about nets! That was how Stone twisted the thing; into an act of mere favouritism, an act that had sacrificed the House. So much for this swine Hunter's talk of "Patriotism" and all that! . . . And by gad, he would simply murder any one who talked to the beast up in A to-night.

In this manner he skilfully contrived to twist that very spirit of House- loyalty, which Dick had fostered, right against its author. Every one agreed that Hunter had behaved disgracefully, and even if Stone had not been so extra lurid in his threats, would probably have been a little cold to him to-night. He was so horribly unpatriotic!

Thus when Dick as usual made a general remark to the dormitory at large, no one felt inspired to answer it. A second trial ended just in the same way. Dick, writing them down mentally as little idiots, gave up the attempt until they were more sensible: and presently Stone with a grin of malicious triumph said something to young Gwatkin, which the nervous junior did not dare ignore.

"A" dormitory was soon engaged in a dialogue, from which its monitor alone found himself excluded.

Perhaps he could have borne so much, since their conversation was not wildly thrilling, but with this sort of petty boycott there went a loss of influence that his schemes could not by any means afford. When, in changing- room or at the nets, he spoke about the need to buck up for the re-played tie, he found no response in either word or action. Everybody clearly thought that, but for his unsporting behaviour, there would have been no need to play the match again at all; and very soon their promise of enthusiasm died. Willie's was itself once more. . . .

Dick, terribly discouraged and feeling very much like throwing the whole business up, had one great consolation: he was on the good old terms with Alan.

Somehow, too, since their pleasant talk under the shadow of the river-bank, the attitude of all his old friends at the School House had appeared to change. Dick, of course, did not suspect that Alan had told them the facts: vaguely, he supposed that they had followed his friend's lead; but the result was soon apparent. Tired of attempting to help these Willieites, who merely resented his energy on their behalf, and finding it tedious to be ignored by fellows whom he thoroughly despised, he came more and more, in these next days, to spend the time with his old friends of the School House.

If the Willieites did not want nets, they shouldn't have them. If they objected to his leadership, let them run the whole show for themselves. . . .

In short, with that hopeless discouragement which occasionally attacks even the strongest in the face of opposition and misunderstanding, he began practically to exist either in the School House or with its inhabitants out on the field. They, no less, rejoiced exceedingly, feeling it was quite like the old times to have that funny old bird Dick about. He himself was radiantly happy, except when meals, lock-up, or bed-time drew him back to Willie's. And this last House, relieved from his mad energy of nets and tubbing, did not grieve overmuch. Stone, finally, lived in the heaven of a conqueror who triumphs against overpowering odds. His foeman, at the end, had crumpled up in an astounding manner! Stone was free to lord it over Wilson's in his old-time way.

The one person not satisfied, in fact, was Mr. Wilson.

Weary Willie was not one who showed things very much: his face was as a mask, and his words few. Dick had no idea that he had got a grievance till he read, one morning, in a letter from his father--

Perhaps the Colonel might say no more, but this was a great deal,--for him. It meant that he thought his son had not altogether played the game, and Dick felt it most keenly, valuing his father's opinion more than almost anybody's in the world.

So even he misunderstood him! Wilson and his father, even, were against him. . . .

Dick promptly stopped going to the School House, and was almost pleased when they were offended at his sudden change, which he could not explain. When one is unhappy, it is easy to get rather morbid and Dick, commonly the most healthy of mortals, just at this period ran that risk. Let those alone blame him, who after good comradeship have never suffered loneliness; let those cast the first stone, who have never had their hearts torn by the need for friends.

He had always been so used to popularity, and now (he almost deceived himself) everybody was against him. . . .

Certainly the House was.

Stone, disgusted at Hunter's sudden return and renewed keenness as to games and everything, stirred up his minions afresh, resolved on securing finally a victory that threatened to elude him; and Best, still sore--mentally--from his thrashing, lent him the great aid of his acid tongue. Between them they gradually worked up the prejudice to fever heat. Who wanted this beastly School House interloper? Why should he come and chuck away their chances in the cricket? . . .

They even induced two wretched new boys to emulate Best's trick of cutting nets, and these, since they gave no excuse whatever (not being able to bring forward Stone's threats as a shield), Dick felt bound to cane: they had been warned no less than Best had been. He knew, however, that he had not the real culprits before him.

He gave them strokes that were probably not felt and certainly could not be heard outside the door. None the less, when he emerged from Caput, he found the whole House drawn up, prudently in the dark end of the long corridor, and was met with a wild storm of boos and hisses. These he ignored as he walked down to number eight.

But the incident meant a good deal, in his present depression, to one who had always thought so much of popularity--and gained so much of it, as well. In fact, sick with the want of friendship and weary of the constant struggle, he brooded on it, and fired with a sudden purpose, went along to the House Master's study.

"Well, Hunter?" Weary Willie said with all his old geniality. He had gathered from events that the complaint sent through the father had, as usual, circulated painlessly round to the son; and felt on thoroughly good terms with his Head Boy. Wilson's weariness consisted chiefly in the slack habit, not unique to him, of putting his unpleasant jobs on some one else. All that he asked from life was peace; a big enough demand for a House Master.

Dick, now that he was here, suddenly repented of his mission, like some one visiting a dentist, but saw no way of drawing back.

"You told me to come along if I was in difficulties, sir," he said, "and I don't see what I can do, now, more than I have done. The fellows don't want to be good at games, or only one or two. It's driving them against their will: and now they've got some grudge against me and won't turn up at nets, or if they do, do nothing, and when I licked two of them for it just now, the whole House hissed me." Here he paused for breath, and suddenly felt very childish.

"So----?" said Weary Willie. He never gave much encouragement with grievances!

There seemed no way except to tell him the decision reached, just now, in number eight. And yet--somehow--it all looked different when put in words which must be spoken to this calm and restful Weary Willie, leaning back with legs crossed in his easy-chair.

"I don't see what there is to do, sir?" he began; unconsciously on his defence, though nobody had charged him. "I can't thrash the whole House, can I? and how am I to make them keen? It was very good of you to--to make me your Head Boy like this, but I can't do the job; and if so, I'd rather not stay." There, he had said it, anyhow!

The master waited for a little, but as nothing more came, he spoke at last.

"As you like of course, Hunter," he said very quietly. "I can't force you to stay, though I shall be sorry. But," and here he paused with the least suspicion of a smile, "I somehow think you will go through with the job, all the same!"

They both sat silent for a while, the master looking at the boy intently.

Dick, with his eyes fixed upon their usual refuge of the fender, had a sudden uncomfortable memory, aroused by those last words, of his father's hopeful voice as he had said, down there in the tuck-shop, "I believe it will be good for you, if you go through with it instead of going round." Also he remembered that last letter. And now Wilson----! It seemed as though every one thought he had more grit than he thought himself. . . .

Presently he spoke, and what he said might not have seemed entirely to follow upon what had gone before. "Thank you, sir," he said very earnestly. "I'm--I'm awfully ashamed of having troubled you." And he looked more than ever at the fender, feeling a bad sort of worm. Mr. Wilson, at any rate, quite understood. And because he had both sympathy and intuition, he knew that here was the moment for one of those words of encouragement, which his odd half- boyish shyness made so difficult for him to speak.

"Not a bit, my dear fellow, not a bit," he forced himself to answer. "You've done wonders, simple wonders. And as to the House--well, we ought to be glad that they've the enterprise to hiss. That shows that they're coming on!"

Whereat he laughed, and his Head Boy joined in. It was so like old Willie to have such a rotten idea! Dick left the study, ashamed of his weakness but also full of a new strength and determination. He left it, too, a slave for life of Weary Willie's, because he had not given him a pi-jaw and because he had lifted him from his humiliation. Also, having to write an essay that night upon Your Favourite Poet, and hating the whole tribe with all the impartiality of ignorance, he took a volume at random out of the House Library. In it he found the line, "One against the world will always win," and though he did not understand it, he was vaguely strengthened.

Speech Day at Sherborough is generally described by the local journalist as "an impressive and interesting spectacle." Now and then, roughly about every other year, he allows himself to find it "a picturesque ceremony, deeply suggestive for those who have the future of the race at heart."

Visitors, however, and such parents as have no son either acting or receiving prizes, would probably sum it up more briefly as a little boring; whilst the boys' verdict almost certainly would be yet more laconic and even less capable of publication.

Sherborough is not seen at its best on these occasions.

At ordinary times those who inspect the school buildings are shown a beautiful old speech hall, venerable in oak, with panels that hand down the glorious deeds of Sherborough's sons, and up aloft a tangle of dim flag-decked rafters breathing all the majesty of a far past. But this was built by a founder, pious indeed but not of faith enough to see the days when his small band of scholars should have grown to half a thousand. Nowadays, Sherborough still crowds itself, with cheery groans, into this ancient hall for concerts or for lectures from the Head; but when the friends and parents of five hundred boys are added to its roll, the mellowed oak and rich stained-glass adorned with benefactors' arms must rank as a side-show, while the day's business is carried out in a marquee.

Tent-making is an ancient art, but an imperfect. Sherborough, on these days, finds itself sometimes too hot, but as a rule too wet. Tightly packed and sternly separated from their parents, away in the far corners of a spreading tent, the boys perch for long hours upon a backless wooden seat formed of a plank nailed down upon two poles. The water that drips down their necks has only one advantage--it draws from Mr. Giffard an expected and ancestral joke. This is greeted with the tumult of cheers due to an old friend. The applause of the School, indeed, is terrific and draws a yearly comment from the Town reporter. Sentimental ladies, their bright eyes glistening with an enthusiasm close to tears, turn around and see in it a sign of the dear scholars' patriotism. They are not experienced enough to know that this is scarcely the place or manner in which boys display emotions sacred to themselves and almost unsuspected; nor are they sufficiently near to see that the juniors, stiff and bored to death, find each excuse for cheering a blessed opportunity to get some fun from baiting the attendant master.

Dick hated the function less, probably, than most Sherburians, because it involved a visit from his father, who on this day alone permitted a breach of his self-imposed exile from the school. Besides, of late years Dick, like most of the leading boys, had always been a performer in the Greek play, and so exchanged the ennui of those hard benches for all the fun of a scholastic green-room.

This term, however, things were different.

Priestley was stage-manager and impresario of the performances for this year, and Priestley had felt sore about Hunter's desertion of his House, just at the time when he had cast the play. Hunter, therefore, was not included in the list of actors. Some of the School House men, consulted at the time, had decided that was best; it would be awkward to have any one in it who was not on good terms with everybody else.

Thus Dick, feeling slighted in the eyes of the whole School, had found himself excluded during these last few weeks from the green-room, or later the tent, wherein all the other big fellows of Sherborough were happily rehearsing. The Frogs of Aristophanes was this year's play, and every time that a loud-chanted Brek-ke-ko-ax, from junior throats, announced the marshy tribe to be encompassing scared mortals, he had felt lonely, longed to be in there, as formerly, with all his friends. Such were the little stings that had at length urged him into the master's study.

Now too, in spite of his new resolutions and the knowledge that, if not too late, he would now be welcome as an actor, he sat in the great tent, feeling alone among a crowd of those not sufficiently distinguished to be acting, and as he listened automatically to a tedious Bishop, thought with longing envy of all the fun that he was missing, there behind that shaking canvas: the wild confusion, the worried choir-master, Priestley 'ssh-ing with a hopeless thirst for silence, the man from Clarkson's in a frenzy of despair, and all the little frogs ecstatic at so much familiarity with members of two first elevens. Nor was he more happy when the play began. Decidedly, it was a rotten play, this year. How awfully funny it had been, last year, when Priestley and he, as two Athenian slaves, had come on in a home-made motor-car; and how childishly stupid it was, this year, when Bruce and Priestley, as the same, were let down in a wobbly aeroplane! . . . He really felt almost ashamed of the whole thing. None of these visitors, of course, could understand a single word of Greek, and when they laughed, it was only because those silly fools on the stage did something that was never intended by Aristophanes at all. He wondered they could be such asses. . . .

But at last all that was ended, and the Mayor was thanking his friend the Bishop very heartily, only to be thanked in turn as a good friend by Mr. Spink, who sold hairbrushes to the School. Three cheers for the Bishop, and three for the Mayor! Three for the Head Master, and three for the ladies! Three for the visitors! Three more, then--tremulously, from an actor--for Priestley, who had led all these. And "God save the King" from the whole company.

Thank goodness! With a general rustle and sigh of content, everybody made a bee-line for the nearest open air; and anxious boys, retrieving battered top- hats, fought their way gallantly towards their parents.

Even that, to-day, did not give any real pleasure to this jaundiced Dick Hunter.

All the morning, whilst he had been with his father, he had felt himself, vaguely, upon his defence. The annual visit had never been less welcome. It came, he told himself, at the wrong time. In a few weeks or possibly in a few days, so soon as the chance offered, he would tackle Stone decisively and prove that he was not the weak slave to public opinion that his father, he could see, believed him. As things were, Weary Willie of course would tell all about their interview when he had wished to throw the whole job up, and that would only make his father more contemptuous.

So Dick rejoined his parent with a distinct sense of grievance. Perhaps he was not altogether clear about its details. At one moment, he found himself annoyed that his father should believe him such a weakling; and then in the next, his plaint was that he should think him so much stronger than he really was and look for actions in proportion! . . . At any rate, he felt quite sure that he had got a grievance, and this was the great thing; so that the gloom scarcely lifted from his face as he came up with Colonel Hunter.

"So that's all over!" this last said with some of his old gaiety.

"Yes; ghastly, wasn't it?" Dick answered in abysmal tones, and they walked silently along.

Generally, he was so proud of his father, noticing how everybody stared at the distinguished-looking soldier, who stood out as some one even in this crowd where few were nobodies. To-day, however, he had not eyes for anything. That long and lonely function in the tent, with all the sense that it induced in him of being suddenly an outcast, had plunged Dick into a real melancholy, so that he trudged along amid the gay crowd of boys and parents with a look of doom upon his countenance.

Colonel Hunter, noting this but not in the least comprehending, led the way tactfully out on to the empty cricket field.

Once away from all the happiness and laughter that made his own misery stand out more plainly, Dick revived, to his father's relief, and that cloud of gloom seemed to lift from his face almost visibly.

By an instinct, Colonel Hunter linked his arm within the boy's.

"Well, old man," he asked with martial directness; "and how is Willie's?"

This was not a success. Immediately Dick appeared to go into his shell again.

"Oh, Willie's is all right," he said. "At any rate it will be." But there was no conviction in his optimism, and all the old unhappiness came back into his face. It was as though a man had been reminded of what made his life a thing of discontent. Colonel Hunter, an eye cocked observantly upon his son, noted the symptom and gave up his attempt at conversation. He would have a word with Wilson, later.

It was not too cheery a stroll, and neither of them felt very much regret when its circular course drew them back on to the crowded lawn again; or even when Weary Willie, all smiles of welcome, was seen bearing down upon them.

"I'm very glad to see you, Colonel Hunter," he said with an unaccustomed warmth.

"And I'm delighted to meet you again, Mr. Wilson," answered the other, not to be outdone.

Both were sincere, for each had promised himself a really long talk with the other, a dialogue in which they would thresh out the whole matter once for all.

Dick melted tactfully away.

He was fully prepared to be quite Napoleonic in his grim loneliness, when Scott and Priestley altogether spoilt the moment by coming up and linking themselves on to him with an excessive geniality. Alan never failed in that respect, whilst Priestley had been feeling very penitent for having left Dick out of the play's cast, now that he had learnt his reason for deserting the School House. Both were full of spirits, and Dick slowly allowed himself to melt. He had almost reached the stage where trouble grows into a luxury; and left alone, he would have passed the time in fancying what horrid things his two elders were saying of himself, as they strolled slowly round the field.

As a matter of fact, they were talking mainly about sport. . . .

Left to themselves they suddenly grew nervous, like the two great overgrown boys that they were at heart. Now that the long-expected opportunity of an intimate discussion was within their reach, both hesitated to stretch out and grasp it. Each in his different way was a logical product of the public school. Oxford in the one, and military life in the other, had encouraged the reserve taught to both as schoolboys. Now, because they had no common friend--Smith minor or T. Brown--to talk about, they fell back upon sport.

Wilson most certainly never would have left that topic, unless perhaps for politics. Intimate talks with parents, he had found, always meant awkwardness and often led to interference. His one instinct, when the moment came, was always to keep on general subjects, and he was now willing to postpone his desired interview with the Colonel quite as indefinitely as he had postponed that with the Colonel's son about the state of Wilson's House at large.

It was Colonel Hunter, then, who doggedly embarked upon the object of their meeting. He had a sort of military feeling that Duty, or Efficiency, or Something of the kind, demanded that he should not go home with his task undone. This triumphed suddenly over his shyness.

"Well, how do you think `Hunter' likes his job?" he asked, apropos of nothing, with a desperate abruptness. A slight twinkle in his eyes and that use of the name "Hunter" relieved the question, he thought, from any suspicion of impertinence.

Weary Willie braced himself to answer.

"He has said curiously little to me," he replied presently. His tones hinted that it had been no fault of his own and roused dim visions of a boy frequently called into the study on a mere chance of his having anything to say.

"He was always a reserved fellow," answered the Colonel; "but I hoped that perhaps some chance incident might have given you a hint of what was going on inside his mind."

There was a distinct question here, and Wilson, not at all sure how much the other knew, felt bound to give some kind of answer.

"Well, as a matter of fact, we had a little interview, just lately." He began rather grudgingly, and paused; but the wise Colonel said nothing, and soon he was forced to proceed. "I gathered that the boy was rather discontented, or let us say discouraged. I fancy that he feels the unpopularity that any reformer has naturally to face."

And now Colonel Hunter was extremely serious. It seemed to the School Master that he could scarcely have been more troubled if he had heard the worst of charges made against his son.

"I feared it, I feared it," he said almost to himself. "I feared it, once before." Then, more directly to his companion, "I'm afraid you're right, Mr. Wilson. The boy has got a weak, comfort-loving strain in him, which makes him dread to go against even a wrong majority and worries me immensely. . . . What was it about, this time?"

But Weary Willie, at this point, was taken with a firm conviction that to say more would be sneaking. He half thought that Colonel Hunter exaggerated the seriousness of this human wish not to be hated: like all strong men, he was intolerant of weakness. At any rate, Hunter's moment of despair, the moment when he tried to throw his burden down, was a secret between them two and not a thing even for his father's ears.

"Some grievance or other," he therefore answered with an off-hand manner good enough to deceive his unsuspecting hearer. "I never go very deeply into my boys' grievances, or try to cure them. I find it quicker and safer to let them blow their fury out, like gales."

Simple-hearted Colonel Hunter laughed noisily at this. "Capital, capital! Blow themselves out! Like gales: yes. Capital!" The phrase conjured up visions of Dick's past.

"Do you remember," said this clever Weary Willie, "--I forget the exact book; but I remember reading of an old man who wrote over his mantelpiece, `I've had lots of trouble, and most of it never happened.' That, I assure you, Colonel Hunter, would serve as a motto for some of my boys!"

Most of them, at any rate, would have been surprised to hear how chatty Wilson could become--under necessity. Colonel Hunter thought him very brilliant indeed. He chuckled more at this last saying, which also fitted his son's younger days.

As they walked along like this, the House Master made a sudden halt.

"Here, you see," he began rapidly, "is where we have our nets. This season, we've been really very lucky in our pro.,--a Surrey man. I wonder if you know his name? You may have even seen him play?"

"Who is he?" asked guileless Colonel Hunter, eagerly. . . .

Wilson's theory about gales and grievances was largely justified in the next days. Dick Hunter's rebellion against Fortune, who had been so cruel after kindness, blew itself out, in very truth; expended all its fury on that one demonstration, now to be bitterly repented. In the calm which followed he had time to think.

Till then he had drifted, the natural mode of progress for a boy at school. With the best wish in the world for peace at almost any price, desiring above all to be comfortable, he had yet found himself drawn into conflict with one fellow, Stone, and so finally into that general unpopularity which he had dreaded above everything. He had been swept along by Stone's behaviour. His cheek, his slackness about games,--these were the things that had raised verbal strife. The sterner passages had been invited by his bullying. On each occasion Dick had frankly not been far from loss of temper. That, and not any made decision or firm policy, it was that had dictated word and action. He had blazed out,--even hit out!--in the moment of anger, and then afterwards been almost sorry for his rashness, hating a position which forced him into this unwelcome feud.

It might almost have seemed that Dick was only strong in moments when he lost his temper!

Now he began to think of his past actions, future policy, and came to see himself as he imagined Wilson saw him, a miserable knock-kneed thing, that lacked the strength to face being disliked by--Stone, Best, and the Willieites! That, he thought in this period of shamed retrospect, was how his father must have seen him, too, and this hurt even more.

Stone and the others: what were they or their opinion of him?

No, he found his thoughts turning rather to that interview between his father and his House Master. He wondered what exactly they had said of him; and thought that he could guess. Things that, from kindness, neither would have said to him. . . .

They and their opinion,--this it was alone that really mattered, and looking back, he could not doubt of it. They both had trusted him to be so strong, and he had been so weak. . . . The very fact that they had spared him, only shown their feelings in a glance, merely revised their estimate of him and looked for less--why, that made things far worse. At any rate it made him more ashamed.

He rose from his self-accusing with new strength. The two men for whose opinion he cared, thought him--must think him--a weak rotter, and he must try to show them he was not. Inwardly, indeed, he half felt they were right, from what had happened; but he must try to live it down and run this show with a firm hand, whatever Stone and Best might say.

The thought that he still had this last chance revived him and roused him from his self-convicting torpor. Stone and Best, indeed? He found himself almost longing for a chance. . . . The House against him? That in his new mood was like a tonic to his warlike spirit. He'd soon show the lot of them if he was going to stand any humbug!

It was perhaps unfortunate that this moment in which Dick emerged from a period of despair with greater energy and fresh resolves, should also have been the moment when Stone felt himself encouraged to bring matters to a head.

Only yesterday, with Hunter always at the School House and every one in Wilson's set against him, the victory had seemed assured: and now to-day the beast came back, always about the studies, full of his old energy and nets!

Stone did not understand the sudden change, nor did he care for it. But this, so he deceived himself, was an expiring flicker on the Head Boy's part. That booing in the passage had driven him out of the House for days: one more decisive blow, just at the moment when he was returning, and he would surely go for ever?

Stone would never, probably, have such an opportunity as this. In a day or two, the drawn House Match was to be replayed, and if the House won, half its grievance would be instantly removed. Besides, that result would mean another wave of keenness about games and so put Hunter back upon his throne again. No, now was the moment to strike. He did not fail to observe the Head Boy's gloom and discouragement during these days, and gleefully reflected that if they made it hot enough for him, he would clear back to the School House. Goodness only knew why he had ever left it!

The sole question was,--how?

Stone, now that he had no sanctity of Monitorship as protection, was more than ever anxious to avoid an actual encounter with the Head of the House. Everything that he had done as yet had been done, so to speak, from behind. He had contrived, without ever being seen, to get Hunter cut in "A"; to have him booed in the long corridor; to set the whole House once more against his pet games; and even to make two kids actually disobey his orders. And all the while he had kept safely in the background, for it is not only in the big world that any revolutionary mob may find its leaders well in the hind rows.

But all this had not been enough to drive out the thick-skinned Hunter, so bad at a hint, and it is very difficult actually to push a man out without coming forward! It would have been easier, of course, if everybody had not been a funk, so he said bitterly. But Best frankly admitted that he had had enough and that somebody else might wear out the five other canes,--Brick himself, if he had that ambition; whilst Eyre, who risked becoming a fourth person of prominence in Wilson's, no less openly declared himself on Hunter's side. Stone did not venture to molest him further, though he certainly retorted, "Well, I dare say; considering it was rewarding your beastly oil that made Hunter lose the House its match!" And as to Medwin,--well, who could imagine Medwin as a mutineer?

No, there was no one to do anything but talk.

"Why don't you do something yourself, then?" Best at length said, rashly turning on his master. "You're easily the beefiest man here."

"And you'll know it, too, if you don't shut up soon, my boy," Stone answered; but though the repartee was quite effectual, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that Best was voicing the opinion of the House. Yet the one thing that he most certainly meant not to do was to "do something" himself. Catch him giving Hunter the hold over him which he felt certain the Head Boy desired!

It was whilst groping at a loss between the two horns of this dilemma, that he suddenly lit on what was very like an inspiration. He gave a small, ironic chuckle.

"What's up?" Best asked.

"Nothing. Only,--I've had an idea. . . ."

"Call that nothing?" said Best crushingly. "I should call it an event."

Stone was getting rather weary of his witty friend (he always did towards the end of term), and being also full of his new bright idea, did not trouble to retort in word or, as more commonly, in deed.

For here was what had come into his mind and roused that bitter chuckle of delight. He had never quite forgotten or forgiven that episode of Hunter's breaking-in upon his little interview with Eyre. For one thing, it had cost him his Monitorship. But what rankled most was this: he knew that Hunter had been justified and he himself had acted like a cad. It takes a strong man to forgive people who are in the right. Well, all that had begun with Eyre banging up against his door, and Hunter had implied that this was nothing. Now,--here was the idea,--he would show him whether it was nothing! He would get the whole House, as they passed Caput, number eight, or wherever Hunter was, to barge against the door and see if he still thought it nothing!

Stone knew that to one in the Head Boy's position, pin-pricks are more hard to endure, and less easy to resent, than serious attack. This constant nuisance would prove that the whole House was set against him, and there was something contemptuous, too, about the futile action. Surely this demonstration, unmistakable and yet impossible to stop, would drive the interfering swine back to his proper House? He could not very well dash out each time it happened, or if he did, would only make himself ridiculous, for he could never punish the whole House. Besides, why should he punish them for what he once himself had said was nothing? . . .

Even Best, secretly relieved that the new scheme was not more desperate, professed himself delighted. This would score off the beast Hunter nicely! And really there did not seem any risk about it. This was a great score. . . .

During the evening lock-up next day it was carried into practice.

Stone with a cricket-stump, and Best with his tongue, went round the studies together and explained the plan. They made it quite plain that this was a patriotic action. Nobody cared to have Hunter losing the House matches through his beastly favouritism. And who wanted to do stomach-drill in "A"? No, they must turn him out! . . . And then the plan was set forth in detail. Every one, in passing, was to bump his door. They could run afterwards if they were funks; but if they were ever seen going by without doing it, by gad----!

And every one knew what that meant, said by Stone. He went out with an eloquent flourish of his cricket-stump.

Soon the whole House had been told, except only Eyre (Stone possibly forgot him?), and had promised to obey, partly from fear but also partly from love of a "rag" and from a cleverly-encouraged sense of grievance. The two leaders now felt that they must start off, as it were, with a big splash. It would be rather tame only to knock when any one went past. That would not be half often enough, for a beginning: it might be ever so long before he understood, at all, that it was meant to be an insult!

Still with the persuasive cricket-stump, Stone began sending the juniors along to hit the door of Caput. Very gingerly they tiptoed down the passage, smote the panel hurriedly, and then with a feeling half of heroism but also half of panic ran for safety. They returned to their own studies with a smile of relief and Stone rewarded them by a rare word of encouragement: "Good man!"

Now it was perfectly true that Dick, as a rule, would have regarded a bang against his door as "nothing," and not even have troubled to protest. He knew that small boys, from time immemorial, have loved to try their strength by charging one another, always with a hope that the victim may drop the books from underneath his arm; and if Eyre on that famous occasion had bumped against Dick's door instead of Stone's, he would not even have been told to go away, much less have found himself half-garrotted.

Still, when in about three minutes there were a full dozen bangs,--and that, too, in lock-up, when fellows ought to be in their own studies,--the matter became different. To the first he said "Come in"; to the second, "Come in"; to the third, "Come IN"; and at about the twelfth he dashed out for a few words with the culprit.

Dragging him back to where the light from Caput fell upon him, he found it to be R. Sell.

Now Dick had always regarded young Sell as eminently harmless,--except when he attempted to play cricket,--and was utterly astounded.

"Is it you, Sell, who've been knocking all this time at Caput door?" he asked with due sternness.

"I did then," replied the trembling Sell: "but not before."

"Well, don't do it again," said Dick. He knew well enough that this nervous youngster was not the real culprit.

Still, he must stop this nuisance, and therefore, raising his voice to be heard by all those who, he felt sure, were listening at the study-doors, he added: "And just tell the sportsmen who did it `before,' that this is lock-up and that fellows are meant to be in their studies, not knocking at Caput! Just make it clear that the next man who knocks will find himself in Caput, rather painfully, to-morrow morning: see? Now then, clear off to your study and jolly well stay there."

Sell, full of relief and gratitude, sped home. He did not mean to knock at Caput any more.

Somehow or other everybody else seemed to have taken a very similar resolve. Gwatkin, for instance, whose turn to knock came next. He was awfully sorry, Stone, but he didn't think he could. Hadn't Stone heard what Hunter said just now?

"I heard, the silly ass!" Stone answered. "But that doesn't make any difference: it's only his bluff;" whereat he raised the cricket-stump in menace and called Gwatkin a young funk.

Gwatkin, however, was a cold-blooded, calculating sort of funk. It occurred to him that if Stone really thrashed him with the stump, he could always yell and bring Hunter along; whereas if Hunter thrashed him with one of those long canes, he might yell himself green and Stone would never burst in to deliver him. Wherefore he refused to knock.

Stone had very much the same idea, so far as Hunter's intervention went, and did not dare to use the stump. He contented himself with that usual menacing "by gad . . . ," which spoke of dire tortures in the future; and then tamely went on, with Best, to get young Ogilvie to do his turn instead. But young Ogilvie, encouraged by Gwatkin's overheard resistance, was equally determined. So, in short, was everybody else.

"Well, you are a rotten set of funks!" said the foiled Stone at last to the inhabitants of number four, though he referred to the whole House.

"Rotten," echoed Best with emphasis.

That gave the leader another idea. "I say, Worst," he said with new geniality, "you just go and do it once, to show them that the Ogre doesn't swallow Naughty Boys!"

Best did not seem quite so sure about it. He had, so to speak, been swallowed once, and did not wish to clamour for a second entry into Caput. Apart from all else, he was a Senior and did not care much about being caned. It hurt his dignity, for one thing. And other things as well. . . .

"No thanks, Brick," he said with that frank cowardice which almost becomes moral courage: "I've had my turn; now it's some one else's!" Then, using the obvious retort: "But why don't you go?"

Stone glared at him. He thought that his threats had long ago stopped all that nonsense! "Oh, I'm not going to fag," he answered weakly. "He isn't good enough."

"It isn't good enough, you mean," corrected Best.

"Well," sneered Stone rapidly, as though not hearing this, "I never saw such a lot of white-livered funks."

"Every one'll do it, if you start them," Best said, defending the whole House, and already beginning to suspect that the wholesale promise was quite safe. "You can't expect us to go unless you do, and besides it's easier for you. He can't thrash you!"

"I should like to see him do it," came the splendid vaunt.

"Well, why don't you go along, Brick?" Best prodded, skilfully.

There were three juniors in the study, and though they naturally did not venture to say anything, Stone felt that all their sympathy was on the side of Best. Besides, unless something were done, his great scheme seemed at its end, and with it all his power gone. Hunter by one indirect threat had frightened the whole crew of them!

Stone began to think.

It had not been until after a full dozen bangs that Hunter had come out, and now he would be relying on their fear, besides being lulled to security by this long interval. He was practically certain not to come out, this time. Next, he would be waiting; but if one tiptoed down like the kids and then rushed back. . . . After that he could force Best to keep his promise, and tell the others, too, that it was absolutely safe.

"All right," he said nonchalantly. "I don't mind, if it amuses you."

Amid thrilling excitement among those who watched through slightly-opened study doors, he began to make his way slowly down the passage.

Unhappily for him, so far as sound goes, there are degrees in everything-- even of tiptoe. Stone, no less than the juniors before him, moved cautiously, with hands up in the air, feet raised clear of the ground and carefully set down: but he was heavy, with thick boots still on (against all House rules), whilst they were light and virtuously wore their thin-soled slippers.

Where they had been like ballet-dancers, he was a mere hippopotamus.

Dick, hearing this painfully noisy effort to be quiet, rightly guessed that here was the inventor of the whole petty business, and having been fortified by his interview with the House Master, instantly determined to reject the easy way of feigning not to hear. He knew the scene would not be pleasant, foresaw that it would postpone yet further the chance of any truce with Stone; but ashamed of his late weakness, he resolved to take the strong line and to face things now. Away with compromise and all desire for popularity or what was pleasant; he would show his father and Wilson that he was capable of "going through with it"!

He got up from his chair and stood close by the door, his finger on its handle; waiting.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Very hastily did Stone give his three blows upon the panel. Then, even whilst he poised himself for flight, the door flew wide open as if by magic, --Aladdin's cave in Pantomime,--and he was face to face with Hunter.

"Yes?" said this last coldly, as though he had come out to see exactly what the visitor who had knocked was wanting. Stone was too surprised to answer.

"Did you do that, Stone?" Hardly needed, but the interview was difficult to start.

Stone, even now, did not help by an answer.

"Well, don't you know it's lock-up?" Dick said. He spoke in even tones, just as he or any Monitor would have spoken to anybody else breaking a House rule. "I don't know what you're doing wandering about at all. Go back to your study."

That was all. There is no punishment in any House for such offences,--so long, of course, as the culprit obeys: there are some penalties for Disobedience! Just what any Monitor would say to any boy. . . .

But Stone could not accept it, tamely. He knew no less than Dick that the whole House was listening from its study-door. Crawl back to his study now, and all his power was gone. Yet--have a scene with Hunter, and he knew well who had the upper hand. It is ill fighting with a Monitor, and worse with one who has an athlete's arm.

The mean was difficult to strike.

Stone, cursing himself for this false step, did not know what to do. The game of thrusting others forward from behind was over: he had advanced too far and found himself in the grasp of Authority.

Submission, fatal: cheek, disastrous.

Cats, it is said, may look at kings, and Stone in this dilemma resolved upon expressive silence. There is no punishment for that! Perhaps the Head Boy would get tired, feel crushed, think he had done enough, or for some other reason go back into Caput; when he could claim the victory. So he looked back at him, as though he had been mud.

The fallacy, of course, is that kings may do or say just what they like to cats. "Go back to your study. Do you hear?" Dick chose to say.

Stone looked at him, this time, as though he had been worse than mud.

"Do you hear?" said Dick with emphasis.

The study-passage thrilled with expectation.

Stone's lips curled in scorn. "I hear," he said coolly. It really seemed the only thing to say, with the whole House listening.

"Well, are you going?"

Absolute ruin, if he did; prestige gone, power, everything.

"When I like," he answered. That was not perhaps so rash as "No"?

"Oh!" said Dick; "when you like, is it?" And wearying of the scene but finding no more satisfying end to it, he suddenly grasped Stone round the neck in a grip suggesting iron pincers more than fingers; hustled him down the corridor, past gaping doors; and thrust him violently into number nine, where Best was awaiting his return.

"When I like, I fancy!" he could not resist and sent him hurtling well into the study.

Stone, full of shame, turned round with his fists clenched, but Dick thrust him backward with an open hand laid firmly on his chest.

"Don't be an ass, Stone," he said in quite a friendly way. "You'll only get into a serious row." (It is not wholesome to hit Monitors at any Public School.) Then more officially: "And I don't advise you to come out till lock- up is over; do you see?" And he went out.

"Beefy devil!" commented Best, with a shrewd admiration that did not please Stone.

This last stood putting his collar straight, cursing underneath his breath, full of fierce "by gads," and almost weeping in his shame.

Right past all those juniors! . . . Him! . . . Like a beastly kid! . . . He would rather have been given lines, put up for Caput, anything but this! . . .

He stood fuming in impotent and frantic rage.

"I'll go and bash the bally panel in!" he flung out presently with a startling abruptness, and moved towards the door.

"I say, look out, Brick," cried Best. "Don't be a silly ass! You'll only get the sack." And he put out a hand to stop him, as Hunter had before.

Stone brushed this hand away like a mere fly. "Get out of it, you little ass," he roared and thundered down the passage. At the mad footsteps a dozen study-doors flew open. The horrified perturbation of the juniors was as wine to him. His one mad instinct was to win back his prestige.

Bang!

One great satisfying thud he gave on Caput door, and then stalked up the passage once again. Even so soon, cooled by achievement and realizing what he had done, he found himself hoping dimly that Hunter might not be still there. Unconsciously, he quickened his pace slightly.

But long before he was at number nine, Caput door opened and the Head Boy appeared.

"Oh, Stone!" he said, as though just making sure: and then he shouted out, "I warned you, you know."

For the moment, that was all. There was no object in a scene. Stone, he knew, wild with passion, would probably fall back on violence, and though Dick had no fear of the result, he did not want to get the fellow sacked.

He went back to his desk, where he wrote out a notice:

"Brick my boy, I'm half afraid you're in for it this time," said Best.

"Oh shut up," answered Stone, in anger. His friend had ceased, certainly, to amuse him. "No one wants to talk about the rotten Caput."

"I say, though," the other mused half to himself, "it's rather funny, isn't it? You were going to save me by not turning up, and now you've got to turn up yourself!" And he laughed heartily at his play on words.

Stone saw nothing funny in it.

The great point, by now, was not how he had been going to save Best, but how he was to save himself. He had no doubt that Hunter fully intended to thrash him. And from the Head Boy's point of view, why not? If he had been a Monitor or First, he would have been exempt, but he was neither, and thanks to his idiocy Hunter had a first-rate charge against him. Oh yes, he reflected savagely, the beast had got a chance to lick him, to rob him of all his influence in Willie's, and you could trust him not to lose it: he'd lay in like anything, you bet! And all the House would be there, listening. . . .

It was not the pain that he minded: it was the humiliation, this and the feeling that he had finally put himself into Hunter's power. So lately, it had seemed probable that he would drive the fellow out and thus resume his lordship of the House: now he found himself put up for Caput, doomed to be thrashed without resistance, finally admitting his inferior position!

No, that was what he would not do. Sooner than that he'd get the sack!

Yes, that was his final resolve in this most difficult of corners: rather than put himself in Hunter's power, he would deliver himself bound into the hands of Wilson. In short, at 9.30 a.m. Stone would not come to Caput.

He knew the sequel, naturally.

The rule of boys by boys: that is the theory of a Public School; but if the machinery breaks down, if a boy utterly refuses to obey the boy put into power, the ultimate appeal is to the master. And just as the State has no use for a man who will not keep its laws or fall in with its made arrangements, so it is at school. That rebel almost certainly will leave. The wise boy swallows his dignity and goes with a set face to Caput.

But that was just what Stone found quite impossible. Life at Wilson's after being thrashed in Caput, he decided, would not be worth living; even at school there is no pity for a fallen tyrant. He even found himself hoping dimly that Wilson might be lenient, feel sorry to lose a boy, and patch the matter up in some less painful manner. This course, at any rate, put off the evil quarter of an hour. He could equally have appealed to Wilson whilst in Caput, according to the Sherborough rule: but he felt pretty certain that he would be sent back for his punishment. That would merely be another score for the swine Hunter!

In any case, when half-past nine struck on the School clock next day, Dick found himself alone, as once before, in Caput.

Medwin had tried of late to do more as a Monitor, if not with much success, since Dick's frank talk with him, but he was not fortified to come and assist at Stone's execution. That was unthinkable! He had been brought up to fear Stone's comparatively strong right arm and painful knuckles. It was not so very long (well after his promotion to be Monitor), since he had tasted them. Yes, he was absent.

So was Stone.

As the minutes passed, Dick came to realize the truth. At first he put his absence down to an unpunctuality that was bravado: he would stroll into his former haunt of Caput, and with a manly air drawl out a social fear that he was "rather late"! But when the quarter struck, Dick roused himself to further action. First he sent a small-boy messenger, and then he went himself; but Stone quite clearly was not in the House.

Those who had been waiting to hear the noise and to see him come out were rightly indignant and much disappointed. None the less there was a compensating thrill about this alternative, and as they went down to Second Hour, they walked with long, serious faces, as though bowed beneath the cares of Empire, discussing eagerly what Hunter would do now and what would happen next in this colossally extraordinary business.

Sherburians from other Houses noted their importance and excitement. "Willieites got something on!" they said with scorn. But because, though very superior, they were only human, they began to get interested by the very thrilling, if disjointed, tit-bits which they overheard; until at last Phelps, overcoming the common scruple about talking to a Willieite, came up to Ogilvie and said, "What's been happening?" in a chill voice.

"Why," began Ogilvie with all the unction of a gossip, "Stone's been put up for Caput and hasn't appeared."

"He'll get the sack then," answered the Captain of the Boats. "Jolly good thing, too. Been wanting it for a long time;" and he went back to his friends, for whose benefit he added, "Ought to make things easier for Dick."

This prophecy of Phelps' came as a revelation to the Willieites and they chattered more busily than ever. There were not many who felt very sorry.

Dick, however, did not want things to be easier: his present impulse was to pray, like some ascetic penitent, that they might be made even harder for him. He wanted to atone!

Besides, the last thing that he wanted was to hand the matter over to Wilson. Certainly that was the usual course where monitorial rule is defied and sure to end in the culprit's expulsion, with a master hungering for efficiency; but Dick did not want anybody's aid.

The struggle between himself and Wilson's had practically been a duel: Stone was the one man who mattered, the whole source of its rottenness and disaffection. Well then, should he weakly go to Wilson and say, "End it for me"? With shame he remembered a former visit, not so different, to the House Master's study. Also he recalled afresh his father's letter. And being just a boy, he felt, finally, that it was rough luck anybody getting sacked . . . and the House wanted him for cricket.

Perhaps he did not work much during Second Hour, but he got through without a punishment and came into the sun again, feeling everything resolved and final.

He would settle up with Stone, himself, and it should be in Caput. This time, there should be no funking. He would carry through this job himself.

Thus whilst all the Willieites were waiting hungrily to see what their House Master would do, they should instead have been watching their Head Boy.

As he came up a little late from Second Hour, he ran full into Stone in the study-corridor.

"Oh, Stone," he asked immediately with an official air; "why didn't you turn up at Caput?"

"That's Wilson's business, now, isn't it?" Stone answered, never very quick and taken by surprise.

"No, it's not: it's mine,--I'm asking you. Why didn't you?"

"Perhaps I didn't want to," Stone said feebly.

Dick suddenly took up the friendly tone he had used once before. He tried not to exasperate the other, because he did not want it to be "Wilson's business."

"Look here, Stone," he said; "don't you be an ass. You know if Wilson deals with it, you'll get the sack."

"Perhaps I'd rather!" in the same sulky voice. Dick had never quite realized how young the other was, till now.

"Look here," he said again; "don't be an ass, Stone. It's easy enough to say that sort of thing, but you know it rots up your whole life."

"Well, why do you do it then?" snarled Stone.

"I'm not doing it: that's just it," answered Dick. "I ought to, but I'm going to let you come along to Caput now and take your licking."

"Thank you," said the other, with a gratitude so extreme as to be obviously of sarcastic nature.

Dick began to get more angry and abandoned the conciliating vein.

"Come on," he said almost truculently. "Are you coming?"

"No, I'm not," Stone answered. Quite a crowd had gathered, peeping out from various study-doors, and to go now was more humiliating even than to go this morning. He did not want any of this rotter's privileges!

But Dick was resolute. He had made up his mind to manage this business single-handed, without falling back weakly on the master: yet what else was left if this obstinate Stone finally refused to come? He could not let him off: that would be fatal, now.

"Oh yes, you are," he said. The argument savoured a little of the Lower Third.

"I'll be blowed if I am!" cried Stone, no less decided.

"In that case," answered Dick grimly, "I'm afraid you will be blowed;" and in one second those iron pincers were once more pressing upon Stone's resisting neck, and he was being impelled helplessly along the passage.

Thus did the Willieites twice in one day have the chance of seeing their late tyrant go ignominiously in front of Hunter: last night out from Caput and to-day towards it. It was certainly a new way to keep order, not seen till now in Wilson's or at Sherborough, but they were bound to own it was effectual.

"Open the door." A hesitation; a slight pressure of the neck; and it was open.

Dick, as before, bundled his victim through it well into the middle of the little room.

"Now," he said with meaning, as he entered after him.

Medwin was poring busily over a book, and grasped the situation with mathematical rapidity.

He rose up from his chair. Decidedly, he could not stay.

"I've just got to get a book," he murmured.

Dick made one attempt to keep him, more for the sake of Medwin's moral pride than through the wish for his assistance. "Oh, but we're going to have the Caput now," he said, objecting.

"Oh?" replied Medwin incoherently and hurried out.

In the passage half the House was gathered, and Medwin's appearance was greeted with something very like a jeer. They were amused, these small boys, at the notion of a Monitor actually being driven out of Caput by a trial at which he ought really to assist. What an ass, and mug, and funk, the fellow must be! Didn't they just wish they were allowed inside!

Medwin was brought up sharp by his reception and stood with his fingers still around the handle. A new feeling of shame suddenly rushed over him. Above everything, there came into his mind what Hunter must be thinking of him. . . . He had a rapid inspiration.

"Clear away from here, you fellows," he said, just as though he had come out simply to say that. Then he went in again.

It was the first order he had ever given, this poor timid Medwin; but because he was a Monitor and Dick had taught the House obedience, it was obeyed. They sullenly retired behind their half-shut doors.

As he went in again, the opening door hit Dick, who had taken a strategic position near to it, prepared for any rush by Stone.

"Oh, sorry," Medwin said, but the look that Hunter gave him did more than tell him he need not apologize for his return: it was also his reward.

"Now then," said Dick with the manner of a chairman who, having a quorum, proceeds with the business of the day; "I suppose you won't say you didn't hear me warn you not to go out in lock-up again, or that it wasn't you who banged the door?"

"I won't say anything," Stone answered for the benefit of those outside.

Dick did not waste further time. "Well then, would you like to see Wilson about it?"

"What's the point?" asked Stone in a bored manner. "He'd only send me back again."

"Reach me down a couple of those canes, Medwin," was the Head Boy's sole answer. He did not care to leave the door. "Now then, bend over," and he pointed to a chair conveniently in the middle of the room.

"I'm not going to bend over," Stone said doggedly.

"In that case," answered Dick, "I'll hold you down, and Medwin do the licking." He twitched his fingers slightly, as though bringing those iron pincers into action once again.

Stone's exact retort was too low to be audible. With a furious, contorted face, he placed himself across the chair-back. To be held down like a baby----? To be thrashed by Medwin----? Anything rather than that. . . .

Dick gave him a stinging half-dozen, well placed, with the full swing of his arm; not from any personal grudge or inborn savagery, but for the good of Stone's soul and that of those listening outside. Then for the good of Medwin's soul, he handed him the cane.

Those other six were not so hard, nor were they really much heard in the passage, but they hurt Stone the most of all. To get them from this smug, whom he had always bullied! He leapt up at the sixth, and faced about with blazing eyes of fury, as though for a moment he half thought of personal revenge on Medwin. It was quite clear that his proud spirit was not tamed.

"Now then," said Dick with all the cold aloofness of a judge: "over again," and took the weapon out of Medwin's hand.

"What for?" Stone was so taken by surprise that this question slipped out even before protest. "I've had my dozen." (This is the limit of a Caput sentence.)

"That was for the original offence," Dick answered. "This is for not turning up."

But Stone did not intend that there should be a "this": his attitude made so much very plain.

"Over!" said Dick firmly.

"I'll be blow----" began Stone; but a memory, something in Hunter's eye, and possibly a twitching of his fingers, seemed to change the sentence. "Over where?" he said with the sullen voice of one who resents what he cannot resist.

"The same chair," said Dick very pleasantly indeed; and raised the cane.

This last dozen came as a glorious surprise to those listening outside, and hammered more deeply the nails, so to speak, in the coffin of Stone's power and prestige. When it was found later that he had been licked by Medwin-- Medwin!--the despot became nothing better than a laughing-stock. Hunter's rule might have its boring points, but under it there was no room, clearly, for tyrants or for mutineers.

Stone, indeed, tried to rouse feeling against him by detailing his ill- treatment. "Beastly cad," he grumbled: "nearly scragged my neck off like a beastly hangman, or I'd have never gone."

This was in the changing-room, before a dozen juniors, and might have been effective if Best had not spoilt it. Secretly rejoiced that his own tarnished glory had been a bit brightened by even the great Stone also getting thrashed, and seeing ever less need to be polite to a fast-falling idol, he spoke up like a man.

"All the same, Brick," he said, "you didn't look half so black in the face as Eyre, that time you throttled him! Besides, you should have `gone quietly' as I did."

This reminder of Stone's far greater brutality and of Dick's official right served to ruin the sympathy aroused. Hunter, they said, was a stern beast but Stone jolly well deserved it. And by Jove, Hunter must be jolly beefy!

At any rate, they did not cut their nets or tubbing any more, nor were there any further bangs on Caput door. Even Stone himself broke his own regulations and went past without the specified salute.

Another thing that helped Dick at the expense of Stone was the re-played draw against Gorst's, which ended in a victory for Wilson's.

With that the real grievance against Hunter died, and they were left to reflect instead that it was altogether through his keenness that their House had got into the third round. That they were now drawn against Weston's, and could not possibly survive until the fourth, did not affect that glorious record.

Dick was well satisfied with the result: the more so because Eyre played well and with real confidence in this, his second match. He dropped no "sitters," and even made two dozen runs in the first innings, which was not so bad. What was altogether good was that he bowled throughout in his very best style, a style that grew better almost every day.

"Well done, Eyre," said Dick; and as the last-named was walking back to the House, the Captain of the School cricket strolled across to him and said, "I say, Hunter, who was the small kid that got all your wickets?"

"Oh, Eyre," answered Dick, off-hand but inwardly delighted.

"Eyre, Eyre," repeated the Captain, as though fixing the name on his memory.

Next half-holiday Eyre was put up for Junior Game, and within a fortnight he was up for Middle.

Dick had seen fellows succeed young like this at games, before. Sherborough, quite lately, had boasted an infant of fifteen in its first eleven, and every Public School can tell of a like prodigy. But Dick had also seen them nearly always spoilt.

He watched Eyre, therefore, with anxiety, but found him changed in no way that was not for the better. This contact with boys from other Houses, who ignored the fact that he was a Willieite because he also was a sportsman, naturally drew him out and gave him the self-confidence that he had lacked. In body, too, he seemed to have grown almost more than one might credit in a single term. (The difference, probably, was in his bearing.) And nowadays, the blush was rare.

But otherwise he was the same; almost too respectful to Dick; enormously keen; very sensitive to blame, still sometimes flushing up at praise; avoiding everything or every one that was not nice; and gradually, if unconsciously, drawing those Willieites whom he liked best up to his own standard of sportsmanship and honour.

Three weeks from the end of term, noting all this, Dick resolved upon rather a bold move. Weston's had duly beaten them, though not disgracefully, and cricket, so far as House ties went, was over for the Willieites until next year. He therefore felt less guilty in handing the interests of that game over almost completely to young Eyre.

That last was literally overwhelmed and blushed dismay. Dick rightly guessed that he was feeling the job should have gone to Stone: perhaps even dreading nasty moments with this latter at the nets. But after all, Eyre would be Captain next year; and also Dick, having been through the fire himself, had got hardened to the sufferings of others and reflected in quite a paternal way, which amused him one second afterwards, that it would "do Eyre good if he went through with it."

Lastly,--a fact that weighed perhaps not least with him, for he was Boating Man, not Cricketer,--this new arrangement had one practical advantage. It left him free to work, with Wilson's help as coach, at what he hoped to make this first term's triumph: the House four. At present, if a scratch four ever had existed, here it was: but there were two keen tutors for three willing oarsmen, and two weeks still before the "Bumps," those famous races that end Sherborough's summer.

Stone's mockery about the House Boat's early efforts was splendidly varied and unlimited.

Whenever they were not up for nets, he and Best used to appear upon the towing-path with a regularity that might have seemed to prove the birth of keenness, if only their appreciation had been rather of a different kind.

"Look at the silly idiots!" Stone would cry, bent with merriment, as Wilson's amateurs went slowly up the stream, all splashing like a fountain except their Crew-man stroke.

"Good old two! That was a ripper!" was Best's delighted meed of praise, when Power caught his usual crab.

"That isn't two," said Stone, with the contempt for his unsporting friend that he, somehow, made less and less attempt to hide: "that's three. They count them from the front."

"Really?" drawled the other with bored languor. "How do you manage to pick up these things?" . . .

Dick, of course, could not fail to observe this elaborate show of amusement on the part of the two friends, but he rightly guessed that he would give them more pleasure by objecting than by seeming not to notice.

"Glad you think we're funny," he did allow himself to say, one afternoon. "That's the idea, you know: to provide harmless amusement for those who can't do anything themselves."

"Sarcastic ass," snarled Stone, so soon as he was out of hearing, and he missed tubbing for two whole days after that.

Nowadays he was rather polite to Hunter; polite, that is, in a negative sort of way. He still avoided conversation with him, but equally he steered free of rudeness or of anything that could induce the iron grip again and that humiliating pilgrimage to Caput. In fact, if anything, he was a little more careful on the last score than upon the first. . . .

So far as "A" went, things were in that vague state which historians love to call transitional. With Stone's thrashing, much of his power and majesty had vanished, and equally, with the victory over Gorst's House, a good deal of the impulse towards keenness had returned. This last was certainly helped by Eyre's promotion to be a kind of unofficial cricket captain. His contemporaries, and still more his seniors, were urged to new endeavour by an impulse that was perhaps in part the envy of reward, but also in part a sense of shame, as wholesome as it was quite novel.

At any rate, the Dormitory was slowly coming to behave towards its Monitor much as it had before the arrival of Stone: and because this last could obviously never join in any conversation with the loathed Hunter, the practical result, childish enough, was that the rivals took it almost in turn to hold a dialogue with all the rest.

But this kind of thing by now amused Dick in his new mood more than it hurt him. He was duly going through with it; and trifles,--why, they were just trifles! Besides, Eyre had been moved up to the High table, so that even at meals, where the House Master was not present, Dick, Eyre, and Medwin proved a sort of conversational majority that held the table, whilst Best and Stone were forced to whisper in a corner by themselves.

Things had certainly shaken down at Willie's in a very astounding way, and the appearance of a House Boat on the river came upon the whole school as a final miracle. To make the Willieite smugs row, every one agreed, was nothing less amazing than black magic.

"Marvellous fellow, Dick," said Alan with real admiration. "Fancy stirring them up even to come out and tub!"

"Yes," answered Phelps: "he's a determined beggar, is old Dick; but I wish he wasn't so jolly odd about the way he's all over us one week, always in the School House, and then drops us utterly the next. We hardly ever see him nowadays."

"Oh, I expect there's some reason," came Alan's old cry.

Dick had not cared to give it; did not want to say that Wilson thought he had not kept his bargain. Besides, by now, encouraged with success, he began to be gripped by the spirit of the fight. He was going to make the Willieites, even against their will, into a decent House. The dust of conflict can intoxicate!

And in this matter of the boat he was at last on his own ground. At cricket he had been good enough to coach them, only because they were so jolly bad: already Eyre was better than himself; but here, as one of the School eight, he knew what he was saying, rather. And he got it done. . . .

Little by little Stone and Best found less food for merriment in Wilson's House Boat, and so little by little also grew more irregular in their patriotic attendance on the tow-path.

They were not by any means a strong lot, these three that Dick had got behind him, but they were the strongest of those who had not been valuable for the cricket. Best, under threats and actual execution, had altogether failed to swim the lengths of Banners that were essential before he would be allowed on the river, whilst Stone had been firm in his refusal to desert the cricket-field for any "rotten four." (He did not put it quite like that to Hunter.)

Power, however, at three, did not altogether belie his strenuous name. Three months ago he had been a big-boned, overgrown affair; but he was one of those who found themselves enrolled as members of "A's" nightly Gym, and scientific drill, combined with tubbing, had filled out his broad frame until he pulled his weight in a most gallant, if not vastly polished, manner. Soon, too, he learnt not to hit stroke in the back as he came forward.

Of the rest, two was Cunningham, enthusiastic but misguided, the weak spot in this crew; bow was as strong as a man at that place need be, and had some signs of being a neat oar in time; whilst Geoghegan the cox had, as an Irishman, all the flow of language essential to his job and got just as excited over a crab as he had, in his first term, when any one pronounced his name in the wrong way.

No boat was more frequent on the river; no coach half so much in earnest as Weary Willie; no captain so generous with hints, afterwards, as Hunter, or so tolerant about mistakes until too frequently repeated. Of all which, presently, the fruits were seen.

"I must say," Stone admitted two days before the races started, almost in a grudging tone, "they do manage, somehow, to get along a bit now."

"Simply rotten," said Best, valiantly hoping that he would be thought amusing. "No nice fountains, and you can't stand still to watch them any longer."

Stone was not amused. (Best certainly was not so funny as he used to be!) "I wonder," he said slowly, almost with regret, "if they'll get a bump?"

But the sportsman side of him, suppressed so long by Best's cleverly- directed sneers, was really thinking that he was sure he could have been better than Cunningham at two. . . .

Who has not heard of Sherborough's Bumping Race? Other schools may, and do, have such a thing, but nowhere else is it taken so splendidly in earnest. Sherburians are proud of the fact that in their life they live up to their motto, which bids them be keen; and visitors who flock from all over England to see the old spectacle of "boats pursuing one another" have no complaint to make about a lack of enthusiasm--or of noise.

If that holds true of the first three nights, it is even truer of the fourth and last. Now is the moment to retrieve the place that one has lost or else to make the bump that experts had expected yesterday; even to add number three to those already scored and so bring off a species of aquatic hat trick! Every House four has some wild scheme for this last night, even if it be nothing more ambitious than keeping clear of a crew ten times its superior.

Bang goes the gun that is to start the race (for no mere pistol-shot could travel down the far-flung line of boats), and in a moment the tense, nervous silence of those counting the seconds has given place to delirious excitement. It is as though a penny had been put into some gigantic slot-machine. One instant, everything is still--oarsmen with arms stretched rigidly before them; coaches grimly watching; onlookers standing in an agony of expectation, waiting for the signal gun; and in the next, everything is motion--oarsmen plugging madly; coaches shouting; onlookers starting forward with a jerk and yelling, waving rattles, blowing hooters, firing pistols, making every known sort of invented noise.

"Row up, School House! Go it, Weston's!"; wild advice to individual rowers, who luckily can never hear; the frantic ringing of rash bicyclists:--and the mad surge, a carnival of dust and noise, forges its way down past the boathouse, along below the crowded bridge, and round the curve to that last fatal quarter-mile. Many the small boys who, motto or not, feel tempted to stop short and walk; many the bruised knees, as weary legs or pushing rivals cast their owners down; many the curses, prayers, and exclamations; many the frenzied signals for one last, great spurt; and in the boats, many the broken hearts as hopes are blasted and a bump is made; many the broken winds, as conquerors fall forward on their oars.

Hooray! Well rowed every one; well rowed! And back runs the whole crowd, to be prepared to carry up victorious boats; to get a good place for the welcome douche; to find out what has happened to the poor neglected bottom crews, which row their no less gallant fights in heavy fours, unchampioned and alone, with no encouragement except this shapeless roar that echoes back from those up at the river's bend.

Not so this year, however.

True, after the mob had pushed and struggled beside the leading boats, there was a gap,--bare towing path with lonely coaches shouting doggedly at second crews,--but then there came another crowd. For here one found oneself among First House Boats once again!

Any fresh crew that comes upon the river must naturally start at the bottom, in the most ancient, the most heavy boat; and last year Gorst's had thought themselves good enough to take that place, which is at all events distinctly safe. Their confidence was so far justified that they had actually succeeded in knocking their rubber-protected bows against the rudder of School House III, for that big House in a proud spirit often puts on a third boat. Thus the order of this year's official bumping card stood, so far as it concerned the last three boats:

But in the carefully inked chart, that every fellow in the school thought better done than anybody else's, it stood differently now: for a line from School House III descended to cross a line that rose from Wilson's I. In short, Willie's on the first night of the races had secured a bump.

To have bumped a Third House Boat, even Stone admitted, was "not bad": to bump a First House Boat, and incidentally rise two places, would be eminently good. And with three nights' racing before them, all the Willieites had said, "We're bound to do it."

On the second night they very nearly had: but "very nearly," if hardly ever quite the same as "just," is never further from it than in Bumping Races. Dick himself, no less than Weary Willie, realized that fact and fully saw how much the "little more" implied. He and his crew had extended themselves nobly, done their very best,--and they were beaten. He and Wilson had a conclave later in the study, but nobody heard the result.

On the third night Stone had been much less satisfied. He had so far melted that on the second night he had unexpectedly appeared in flannels, to run like all the others (except Best), but he said at the end of this night that it wasn't worth it.

"The rotters never tried," he said finally. "Hunter never spurted in the least. I kept on shouting, `Quicken! You're gaining,' but they just went paddling on as though they didn't care. I never saw such a tame lot. Fancy giving in after one try! And then that fellow Hunter calls himself a sportsman!"

"I dare say he's got some idea," said Medwin loyally.

The grumbler swung round on him, with scorn.

"What, the Meddler in flannels!" he sneered. It certainly was a new sight. The school, however, by now had ceased to be surprised at any novelty in Willie's.

"Yes," answered Medwin, possibly fortified by his new manly garb; "and I was in them the first night." Distinctly he was coming on!

"Oh, were you?" scowled Stone, not liking this new mood and furious because a few juniors tittered. "And I suppose that makes you an expert as to rowing? You dare say, dare you, that Hunter has got some idea?" and he fell back on his celebrated imitation of Medwin's hesitating manner.

Dick had indeed got some idea.

Building partly on his House Master's information, he had come to see that the pursuit of Gorst's was rather hopeless and likely to end merely in a tame procession on each of the three nights. His crew had tried its utmost, and had only just decreased the other's lead. The fact was that Gorst's crew, composed last year of juniors, found itself this year with all of its old members. As a result, they were full of stereotyped faults in oarsmanship and lacked both "go" and keenness; but--they had experience and staying power. They were at their best in the last quarter-mile, whilst Wilson's at that same point, as a young crew, found its swing vanishing and its strength gone.

Gorst's was a victory of strength, not of courage or of skill. The course was too long for these Willieites: they could not answer to stroke's quickening, towards the end. In a short race they might easily have won. . . .

And Weary Willie, running home along the bank, in his old flannels and keener than any one, smiled darkly, hearing the Gorstites confident and his own House depressed.

"Willie and Hunter have got some game on, I bet," said Eyre to Medwin, who thus encouraged in his theory, began almost to wonder whether Sport should have been his department after all, and not Mathematics?

The game, clearly, whatever its nature, must be kept till the last night; for of what use to bump Gorst's on Friday, if Saturday gave them their chance of a revenge?

And by Saturday, if Gorst's kept properly elated and felt increasingly secure, every one in Wilson's had become quite certain that the evening would show forth strange things. Medwin in C dormitory and Eyre in B both talked freely of their theory, which remained appropriately vague.

Thus on the last night of this year's "Bumps," an excited crowd stood expectantly around two boats almost extremely at the bottom of the river. The Gorstites were only moderately thrilled, with the emotion of those anxious to avoid disgrace,--bumped by Willie's, of every one!--and pretty sure that they can do it; whilst their rivals seethed in a condition of suppressed and indefinite excitement.

No one knew what he expected, but--Hunter had got an idea!

And their blind faith in that fact said more about their real attitude to him than either they or he suspected.

As the minute gun sounded, the suspense grew absolutely painful. Sherborough at large would never have believed that Willie's could feel so excited over a mere race!

And as the minute gun sounded, Weary Willie shouted from the bank, "Back her down, now; quick!" The great secret was out,--for those who could understand it.

Not that very many understood.

The Willieite small boys were horrified at this weird man*uvre and suspected their House Master of having suddenly gone mad. To back her down just at the minute gun! . . . Why, that was exactly the moment when every other coach yelled, "Touch her, bow and two," to counteract the current's force! . . .

But there was a sickly grin upon the face of Power and the others, even at this agonizing moment, when they seemed all jelly and cold ice within; whilst Geoghegan the cox, trying to remember all the details of their trial starts up river in the morning, got terribly excited but did not seem in any sense dismayed. It could not quite be a mistake!

Gorst's stroke understood, at least.

"I say," he cried to his crew, "the Willieites are going to take a flying start!" And glad of a relief just now, they all laughed long and loud.

Flying starts are quite permissible at Sherborough's "Bumps," but they are very seldom taken. It is not that they are thought unsporting: rather the reverse, in fact; but that they are extremely awkward things to take. Every boat has got an oar driven in the bank as starting point, from which extends a rope of set length with a bit of stick tied at its end. The one rule is that, when the starting gun sounds, no coxswain must have dropped that bit of wood at the rope's end. If a crew likes to start with the rope rather slack, or even very slack indeed, that is most obviously no concern of anybody else's. Thus in theory it is very fine to start right back, almost at the boat behind you; to begin rowing a few seconds before the gun; to be dashing past one's station, so that the coxswain can drop his bit of wood as the gun sounds; and whilst the crew in front is still tremulously getting into motion, to help it with a bang behind! But in practice, coaches and rowers have learnt, one has to reckon with the difficulty of timing exactly the seconds till the gun; one has to be quite sure how good a start one's men will make--in short, one has to be absolutely certain about a dozen things that are upon the knees of those gods who order Chance. So that when Sherborough hears of some boat that intends a flying start, great joy goes around, for there is every prospect that the start will fly too late or else too soon, and both are equally amusing. If the first, even while the clever House boat, splendidly down stream, prepare to take their flight, bang! goes the gun, and in a moment smash! comes a bow upon their scarcely moving rudder: they have thrown away their start. And if the last, it means that they have reached at a good pace the tether of their rope, and still the long-expected gun delays. Poor cox has got his choice: he can either let go of that little bit of wood at the appropriate instant, and so lose his boat a place, or he can hang on doggedly in hope, and thus be jerked back by the rope into a cold, unsympathetic river amid laughter no more friendly from the rival House. The second way is generally considered better form!

All this and more was explained by those who thought they knew, to those quite certain they did not, in that brief minute which passed between the guns.

And while all the other Houses were yelling out the seconds, whether by stop-watch, hearsay, or guesswork, to guide their boats, Weary Willie suddenly cried: "Go!" down his tin megaphone.

They went.

There could be no doubt, certainly, about their start. Stroke thrust his oar into the water with a force that seemed to displace a great chunk of river, whilst his lieutenants backed him up in a most gallant way. And little Geoghegan, leaning forward as if to help the boat along, shrieked plaintively in a falsetto brogue: "Row now! Row now, men: row! Ah, row!"

Not one of the Gorstite crew could quite contrive to keep his eyes inside the boat. It was only human to look up at this four, leaping towards them whilst they had to sit still.

"Oh, never mind them!" shouted their coach, in angry desperation.

And in this moment of confusion came the gun, finding coach and boat alike at a loss.

"Row up, Gorst's!" the cry came, instantaneous with that other sound; and splash! their oars went raggedly into the water.

The Willieites had stood in silent agony. They must not yell or they would drown the gun; but anyhow they had no nerve for it. All of them were sure that Willie had shouted too soon: he did not know his job as well as they themselves! Minutes literally seemed to pass but still there was no sound except of other Houses calling out their silly seconds; and still did Wilson's boat forge onward and the dripping rope began to come up from the river's bottom! Everybody gasped. Geoghegan, never a strong swimmer, leant backwards, seeking to postpone the fatal jerk. Even Wilson was muttering to himself.

Then--bang!

If Gorst's made a noise at that, Wilson's raised nothing less than an uproar. Geoghegan let go the bit of wood with a blissful haste. The Willieites were now delirious.

Their boat was in full swing and Gorst's seemed hardly to be moving! "Well rowed, well rowed! Oh, well rowed!" "You've got them easily!"; loud cheers; with all the noises, almost, that of old sent Jericho's walls crumbling down. Enough, then, to discourage a young crew, and the poor Gorstites heard, as counterblast, nothing more cheery than a hopeless, "Row up, Gorst's: Row up!" Strong, and not quick, by nature, they had hoped as hitherto to shake their followers off by mere perseverance. They had not expected to be pushed like this, and under the strain their spirits and their courage went. Gorst's crew had got a "funk," and no crew can have worse than that.

Splash, splash, splash, they went as stroke, yielding to the frantic shrieks, quickened to a pace utterly beyond his crew.

And sweep, sweep, sweep,--deliberately, calmly,--on came the scorned Willieites. Cunningham certainly, at two, was raising fountains, that quite failed to cool the still exclamatory cox: but he was doing work. And so were all the rest. Dick, setting a stroke that he knew they could follow, was pulling like a slave; Power was plugging strongly in his vilest form; and bow, half dead, was gamely giving every ounce of energy he had within him, only praying that it need not be for long.

Nor was it. Gorst's stroke, bluffed into too quick a pace by noises that seemed to tell of imminent defeat and seeing the rival boat so perilously near, had set his men a task beyond them. High rose the splashings of the water, and the air was filled suddenly with the sounds of oar that struck on oar. Three, in a moment, fell upon his back, and in the next, with a rare dash, Wilson's had charged into the rudder, threatening shipwreck and sending cox's hand up very quickly as a signal of defeat. The boats floated together into mid-stream, scarcely a hundred yards from the spot where their race had started.

And then the usual conditions were reversed. The victors fell supinely, anyhow, without thought or ceremony, whilst the vanquished crew sat up, fresh and hale, with nothing wrong except that they looked very foolish. Sherborough for once had seen a flying start! Gorst's could have rowed another mile; Wilson's might possibly have done another hundred yards. . . .

With shouts and exclamations, School House III, rowing in the easy spirit of those who know they cannot rise or sink, managed somehow to get round the tangled mass of oars and boats, beside which a small crowd of Willieites contrived to raise a noise adequate for thousands.

How they cheered and shrieked! It was their first taste of real success: for what is betting into the Cricket's third round, helped with a bye, beside bumping twice, and one of them a First House boat?

Fellows returning from the front boats found the tumult still continuing in all its vigour.

"I must say, the Willieites are coming on," would be the tolerant remark; and "All Hunter's doing," the certain reply.

No less keen, indeed, than if they had always been the athletic house of Sherborough, these Willieites roared applause, and helped to carry up the boat, and shouted all the time that they were dressing in the changing-room.

And more than any one they cheered the stroke, Hunter, as though they had always loved him above all people in the world.

This glorious victory had a permanent effect on Wilson's House and on its attitude to Hunter.

Nothing so much helps an endeavour as some small achievement; and the Willieites began to find that the last, though sweet, seldom comes except as sequel to the first.

Nobody of course could possibly deny--not even Stone and Best, now grumbling all alone--that the whole affair, like the cricket, had been Hunter's doing. Power himself admitted that he would never have gone on the river, if he had not been forced; bow knew that he could never have outlived even those hundred yards of insane spurting, but for the dormitory stomach- drill; and cox had only learnt to swim the necessary lengths after meeting painfully the hard side of a clothes-brush.

Now they were all as keen as anything and wildly proud, these heroes who had won the House its first taste of success. They almost deceived themselves into believing that they were impatient for the next year's race. . . . Meanwhile, their names and exploits would be inscribed on the new Honour Board, which Wilson, almost as though expectant of this glorious victory, had lately fixed upon the bare walls of the Dining Hall.

And there was something more to add on it, in a few days.

The last week of the Summer Term at Sherborough is eagerly awaited by all cricketers, for now it is that the elevens are made up and posted on the School notice-board, for all to see. Sherborough has six elevens, though only the first two ever exist as anything except a list of names on paper. These two, playing first and second eleven School matches against visitors, are roughly made up of those who have appeared in Senior Game throughout the season; in the third and fourth elevens come those who have played in "Middle"; whilst the last two are made up from the ranks of "Junior."

The first two, naturally, are more or less certain by this period of the term; but as the players in Middle and Junior vary from week to week, or even day to day, nobody quite knows where he will appear upon the list or whether he will appear at all.

Eyre appeared among the third eleven.

Only the Willieites, really, were surprised, for the junior's bowling had made something of a sensation among those who knew anything about School cricket. Eyre's friends as a whole knew nothing; and it is in any case notorious that a man's exploits are always least valued by those who know him best.

"Eyre with his Thirds!" they cried, and at first Stone and Best found themselves once more in sympathy with the House, even if only on a trivial point. Every one joined in their amusement at poor Eyre's expense. Eyre, who was only in his second year; Eyre, who last term was everybody's butt! They were always asking him, now, which of the juniors he would choose as his fag, and whether they might still continue to talk to him, just every now and then, for sake of auld lang syne. . . .

But presently this changed. The third eleven, though it differs from the two above it in never playing as a body corporate, has this in common, that it boasts a cap. Soon Eyre appeared in this, amid yet more hilarity, and even treated Wilson's to some of the old famous blushes; but soon that novelty wore off and he was seen to be walking, superb in the new cap, with men from other Houses whom he had got to know in Middle. And they were great men, these: some of them Firsts in other branches of athletics. Even Hunter, nowadays, did not think it odd to go down to Third Hour with Eyre.

The rumour began to be murmured about Willie's that he was a dead snip for his Firsts next year. Besides--they had never realized it until now--he would be Captain of the House cricket then, with Hunter gone. And he had come the same term as themselves, or even afterwards. And they were nobodies. . . .

Eyre ceased to be a joke, coming instead to be an object of envy and almost of respect. He must be jolly good, you know!

Above all, he became an object of emulation, because he showed what keenness might do, even for a second year man, in a single term. His contemporaries began to wish that they could own the cap which had so entertained them; even secretly to wish that they might stroll about the field arm in arm with Phelps and half-a-dozen other swells, or have the privilege, as colour-men, of watching matches from the roof of the Pavilion.

This wholesome feeling combined with their first taste of success to act as a sort of tonic on them all. So far Dick had forced them to do things, but now they began to ask themselves what they could do. An electric sensation of keenness and ambition suddenly tingled in the blood of this hitherto sluggish House, and roused it to a fresh energy, from bottom to top.

Yes, Medwin was infected, too!

He had been there so long, longer than any one, and he had done the least of all. He felt that Hunter must despise him so: he knew that he despised himself. Ever since Dick's very straight talk with him, he had tried to do more as a Monitor and even, a little, to stand up and face his old tyrant Stone. The discovery that his presence at the great Caput, when he had actually caned the boy who used to bully him, was not attended with dire retribution, encouraged him to be less nervous. Yes, certainly he had done more of late. The fellows in C found themselves of a sudden ordered to get back into bed or to stop talking--a sad blow for any one accustomed to be absolutely free. Even Best was told to stop swearing, and obeyed--less, be it said, from fear of Medwin than because he knew Hunter was in the offing, ready to protect the Monitorial power.

But all this did not help Wilson's in sport. There were so few of them, mostly so small, and he did literally nothing! That was all right in the old days, the good old days when nobody did more, but now every one did something --even Best--except himself, the oldest of them all. And he despised himself.

"I say, Hunter," he said abruptly, one day in Caput, as sequel to these thoughts; "do you think I'd be any good at boxing?"

Dick tried not to show his smiles. He had learnt before that poor old Medwin was a sensitive kind of devil; but really, the idea of this gaunt, lanky hulk, without a muscle on his body, standing up to take a good blow on the solar plexus----!

"No," he answered gravely; "I shouldn't say you were especially the build for it. But why? Got a grudge against some one or what?"

Medwin appeared to be rather embarrassed.

"No," with a nervous laugh; "but well, I was wondering--you see, I feel I ought to be doing something for the House: everybody else does, now; and I know I'm no good at any of the ordinary games: I've tried--and I was wondering if I could take up boxing possibly and then if I was any good, could represent the School at Aldershot----"

At Aldershot! The vision grew in splendour. More than ever Dick must hide his smiles.

"Oh, don't you worry about that," he said. "There are lots of us to do things, and five more coming next term; we shall be all right. I know what it is--you're thinking of what I said, a week or two ago? Just forget it, though; I oughtn't ever to have said it. You're beastly good at Maths. and that'll be twice as useful afterwards as footer. I know I wish I jolly well had half your cleverness." Dick forced himself to get through to the end of this; he had been longing to apologize, to give this poor Medwin back his self-respect, ever since that last interview.

But Medwin did not want apologies. "No," he said, "it's not that," and then he added with a shame pitiful to see, "But I feel so beastly useless."

Now it was Dick's turn to feel awkward.

"Oh, rot, man," he said in a curiously youthful way.

"It isn't rot," cried Medwin almost passionately, "but it's just I didn't care for games: I wasn't built like that; and no one here did play, so I just slacked about happily and watched. But all the others could have been good if they'd liked, and now they're getting it but I can't, and I want to help the House and can't do anything. It's quite true, Hunter, I swear. You're so beastly good at everything somehow, you must think me a hopeless rotter; but I'm not, really. It's only--what I say; but I feel such a smug, sometimes." And for one moment it looked as though the great, overgrown, soft creature would burst into tears.

Dick, hating the whole scene and almost resenting it, yet had a sudden feeling that he must be "decent" to this Medwin, who felt useless and ashamed. He had been brutal once; well, now he must be kind. And because suffering is the parent of sympathy, perhaps he half remembered a time when he, too, had felt ashamed and Weary Willie by pretending not to notice his abasement, by a few words of encouragement, had made a slave of him for life. . . . Certainly he did not actually think of it, but for some other reason, if not that, found himself saying unexpected things to the fatuous old Meddler.

"Don't you believe it, old boy," he was saying with a new, sudden warmth of feeling towards that unattractive person; "you're jolly far from useless, I can tell you--you've helped a lot lately as Monitor. Besides, Maths. is your job, just as games are mine. You stick to that and you'll see: Willie's 'll be the first House to have a Senior Wrangler on its Honour Boards!"

"Oh, don't rag," said Medwin awkwardly. Then he gazed solemnly at Dick with a look in his eyes that did not suit that comment in the slightest, and without more words, hurriedly went out to his own study.

As to Dick's prophecy, is it not justified, on the said board in Wilson's hall and yet again, in all the rare splendour of gold, upon the panels that hand down the names of famous Old Sherburians to those who visit the School Speech Room?

The first moment at which Willie's itself suspected its new keenness, a discovery full of surprise but much less painful than might have been expected, was on the evening of its annual supper.

Every House at Sherborough celebrates the last Saturday night of the Summer Term by a kind of orgy of self-congratulation. This is the time to live afresh, and cheer anew, all the athletic triumphs of the year, or if there has been any lack of such, to show exactly why, and prove conclusively by logic's rules that next year will be very different. Every House, on this night, is proved to be the best House in the School.

Wilson's till now had been an exception. Even the fine imagination of its master paled before a task like that. He had been content to give his boys a little homily, with a big meal thrown in, and the thing had thus sunk rather to the level of a parish school treat.

This year, everything was changed,--except the meal.

That over and the tables cleared, Weary Willie rose slowly to his feet. In that first instant even, in the reception given him, the evening struck a new note. The old undercurrent of ironical amusement, the Best-Stone element, had vanished, and in its place there came a roar of keen boyish enthusiasm; applause that was a tribute, not a mockery. Stone and his ally, hidden away at the furthest point possible from Wilson, found themselves like aliens as they thumped the table in the old sarcastic, exaggerated way, or sent prudently muffled and vague cat-calls through closed fists.

Weary Willie beamed at his House with a new pride. Luckily it occurred to none of them to ask what his feeling for them must have been till now.

"Gentlemen," he said, with an old-world formality, as the cheers died away, "I think you'll all agree that this has been a most eventful term." (Applause. Also, sotto voce, "Most" from Stone, and giggles from the appreciative Best.)

"In other Houses," the master went on, "it has always been the custom for the House Master to read out at this supper the achievements of his boys during the past term or year. We have never done that, because,--we can afford to be frank, now!--we have never achieved anything at all." (Half-hearted laughter. "Sarcastic swine" from Stone.)

Weary Willie saw that his little joke was not a great success and hurriedly turned over to the new, brighter side of his picture.

"We were a small House," he said, as if making excuses for them, "and our Honour Boards were empty. But this term"--and he swept his arm triumphantly at the vast empty-looking panel with its few isolated lines of print--"things are very different." (Loud cheers.)

"I want, then, to follow the example of our older, though I won't say better, rivals and read to you the record of what we have done in our short life as a big House." (Huge expectation, as though nobody had ever heard a syllable of it before. R. Sell, with much forethought, picked up a spoon dropped by the servant as she cleared his place.)

"First of all, in the Inter-House cricket we defeated Gorst's and got into the third Round."

Here he paused effectively and was rewarded with delirious cheers. R. Sell banged his spoon upon the table, till he caught Hunter's eye, when he noisily dropped the now flat and shapeless piece of Sheffield on the floor again.

"In the Bumps we again out-matched Gorst's, not to mention School House III, and so rose two places on the river in our first year with a boat: a very creditable record."

Willie's had got the spirit of the thing by now. All its old pride in being "rotten" had vanished as by magic and taken with it the old scorn for "people who got hot in kicking balls about, and all that sort of rot." Only Stone and Best, apostles of that very manly and superior tone, smiled cynically and gave mock applause. It was a rather bitter moment for them both, this in which they first realized themselves to be alone.

"So much for the two branches of Inter-House athletics. Coming to individuals, I think we may say that every single fellow in the House has not only done his best, but literally done something to help his House along."

At this point everybody felt a bit uncomfortable. There was no visitor to say "Hear! Hear!" or master's wife to clap soft hands, and every one sat in an awkward silence. Medwin, especially, blushed scarlet. What had he done to help Willie's? . . . Like all nervous people, he was thoroughly convinced that the thoughts and eyes of all present were directed at him and at him alone.

Nor was he wrong, so far as the orator's thoughts were in the question.

"Our old friend Medwin, who used to look after us so well last term, has set us an example of keenness and efficiency by winning the School Mathematic Prize and also a scholarship at Cambridge." (Cheers.) "We shall be proud to have had him here, when he's a wrangler." (Laughter and applause, with cries of "Meddler!")

"Eyre, who seemed a small boy only last term, is now a great man" (vast joy of Eyre's neighbours), "and is in the Third Eleven." (Cheers and much nudging of the hero from all quarters.) "Next year, we all hope, for `Third' we shall be able to read `First.'" (Redoubled energy in both directions.)

"I could say much more of what our fellows have done, but we want to get to the songs, and I have said enough to show what enormous progress we have made in one short term. At this rate we shall soon be the best House in the School."

The prophecy was very popular: and modest, too. No other House Master to- night was talking in the Future tense. . . .

"So far, of course, I've left out the name that occurred first to all of us, when I spoke of our honours;--I mean Hunter." (Loud applause.) "I have done so, because his honours as Crewsman, winner of the Gordon Cup, or as our trusty Goal" (more cheers), "were won before he came to us. But he has won more honours since."

Here came another effective pause, which, however, only found the audience bewildered. The orator cleared his throat, and adopted a tone very different from that in which he had made his kittenish reference to Eyre.

"He has won the honour," said Wilson, very seriously, "of pulling our House half-way up the ladder by the mere force of his own energy and perseverance. I am talking frankly to you to-night,--I always have on these occasions,--and we school-masters are not such fools as some of you imagine." (Puzzled laughter: what on earth was Willie driving at?) "I know as well as he knows, as you know, that Hunter has had a hard fight; but it was all the more worth winning. Perhaps we didn't all want to be energetic: we had got used to being a small House, not expected to be good at anything; but he has made us be, and we are grateful." (Half-hearted, embarrassed applause, suddenly reinforced with suspicious vigour by Stone, doubtless grateful for a hard two-dozen.) "We can afford, now that we are keen and successful, to look back--no, to forget those days when we were neither; those days when we resented Hunter's efforts to make us a great House."

He suddenly realized that somehow or other the sympathy of his audience had gone; its applause was awkward, if not grudging; so that he hurriedly cut short his remarks and made a sporting leap towards the moral. As a conscientious man, although a very nervous, he could not stop before he got to that.

"I will not say more now, I have said enough,--perhaps too much; but when one is grateful, one is nervous of saying too little, and I think this is the moment publicly to recognize our Head Boy's resolute determination. It needed no little courage, as you will see some day, to carry things through as he has, regardless of public opinion, and if he has ended by winning our gratitude and our respect, I want you to realize that this is no accident. If he had given in to our ideas, chosen the easier way of being pleasant, we should have come to despise him. I have always at this supper said a few serious words to you and I shall not think I have made a shocking innovation in reading out our honours instead, if it brings you to realize one of life's great truths,--that there are many roads to popularity, but the safest way is through respect."

"Amen," muttered Stone, as Wilson ended; and everybody felt uncomfortable. Their House Master was always direct, when he did speak, but they never remembered anything like this. They also hoped that it would not occur again.

Dick of course was least at ease of all those present. The earlier part of this speech, with its electric appeal to the once stagnant Willieites, had been like wine to him; and for a moment he had even felt glad, although discomfited, to know that Wilson really had been satisfied; but as the thing went on, he writhed in misery. This was too much! He couldn't understand how any one could say it! It was simply making him a fool before the House. . . . Why wouldn't the ass stop? . . .

And when at last the ass did duly stop, Dick sat and listened to the feeble songs and rapturous applause with all his pleasure in the evening gone. He felt that he had been put into a false position by this well-meant tribute. He did not want the House's gratitude, and from the House's mood during the speech, he gathered that he had not got it.

The sympathetic House Master had, in fact, for once made a mistake. Usually he kept silent where he might have spoken. Here he had reversed the case. At a moment when the House, roused to enthusiasm by the story of its exploits, was just coming to realize its progress, preparing to cheer madly the boy who everybody knew had been responsible, Wilson had spoilt everything by underlining the most admirable moral and setting up Hunter as hero on a pedestal.

Like many well-meaning people with a sense of duty, he had forced himself, against the grain, to do something utterly superfluous. He had spoken too soon and too long. All that he had said might have come aptly in two terms' time, when Hunter would be really popular, fully established; a word or two, equally, might well have helped the process now.

As things were, the Willieites felt more than ever that they had been held up as sinners, a thing bitterly resented by new converts above every one, and Hunter as a saint condescending to cast some of his qualities to them below.

Stone, at the evening's end, passing close to Dick as they went out of Hall, gave him a look of supercilious amusement, quite in the old-time manner; and Dick for some reason that he could not explain felt suddenly almost ashamed.

"Oh, Hunter, I want just a word with you," said Weary Willie.

It almost seemed as though he might have guessed, for as Dick took his seat upon the usual hard chair, he started nervously, "I hope I didn't say too much to-night?"

"No, sir," lied Dick, feeling a good bit of an ass.

"I think you have done wonders," the House Master went on, and then stopped as abruptly as a clock run down. He found these things easier to say in public.

"Thank you, sir," Dick murmured, and allowed himself to add, "but I'm afraid things aren't quite so settled and peaceful as you said. There's a lot still to do." His mind went back to Stone's face in the Hall, just now.

Weary Willie was relieved to be once more on the plane of business.

"Ah yes, Hunter," he said, very matter-of-fact in a moment, "that was what I wanted to speak to you about:--next term. I quite realize that that's the time. As you know, since Stone was--er, dethroned" (here he smiled) "B dormitory has been a republic. Next term, however, I am glad to say we are to have five new boys, and I think it is essential that the House should have another Monitor. Now,--whom do you suggest? Best, of course, is the most senior fellow. Do you think Best would make a good Monitor?"

"Frankly, sir, I don't," said the outspoken Dick.

"Nor did I,--frankly!" answered the master, whereat they both laughed. Dick was forgetting his grievance against Willie. "Well then, who?"

"Eyre?" asked the Head Boy, tentatively: he had not thought about the matter.

"Eyre?" echoed the master, doubtfully. . . . "Isn't he a little junior?"

Dick felt bound to support his almost intuitive suggestion.

"He is junior, but there needn't be any seniors in B, need there, sir? Eyre has come on a lot this term, and I believe it'd bring him out, you know:--he's got to be Captain of the House Cricket in any case, next year!"

"Well----" said Willie. It was rather a pity, Dick reflected, that he was not equally brief in his more public utterances.

"I think you're wise, sir," answered Dick, who had learnt how to understand these monosyllables; "and I believe the House has got a sound man there for some more years to come."

"I hope so, I hope so," said Weary Willie, absently. He filled his pipe as though in a state of coma: his thoughts obviously somewhere else. He did not usually smoke in presence of his boys. "Yes." . . . Here a long pause. "Ye-es." He struck a match, held it until his fingers felt the heat, and threw it rapidly away. This seemed to rouse him. He looked up quickly as though suspicious that his Head Boy might be laughing; and Dick just contrived to be no less swift about looking down.

"Well, Hunter," said the master almost briskly, putting his pipe away: "I must not keep you from your dormitory; but next term--that will be the time. We shall have to keep stoking the energy you've roused in them!" Then, very abruptly, "Good-night."

Dick, his hand upon the door knob, was just about to make the usual reply, when Weary Willie dreamily exclaimed: "Oh, Hunter!"

"Yes, sir," replied Dick, who had got accustomed to these jerky ways.

"There's a letter for you on top of the bookcase there, and one for Gwatkin too. Will you be my postman? Everything's upset on these occasions. Good- night, Hunter."

"Good-night, sir," Dick answered cheerily.

None the less, he did not feel extremely cheery, as he went along to get his books from number eight. "God save the King," had scarcely died away before another sound, the clanging of a bell, had summoned the Willieites from revelry to slumber. All was now dark and silent in the study-passage: everything attuned itself to his new gloomy mood. Only this evening, his troubles had seemed at an end, victory assured, and now----!

Weary Willie, content to leave everything conveniently to his Head Boy, had stepped in at the end, and thinking to place wreaths upon his brow, had merely put shackles on his feet. It would take time for Hunter to live down that eulogy.

As he entered his dormitory, a noisy babel of voices gave place to an awkward silence. A knot of chatterers broke up. Stone walked across to his own bed, and noisily threw down his boots.

"Here comes Saint Richard!" he had muttered viciously, as the Monitor's footsteps were heard; and Dick, entering, just caught it.

Stone had merely flung the nickname out as a safe insult. Hunter, he knew, could not drag him to Caput for saying things like that to some one else: and possibly it would annoy the brute!

It did. It did more. It discouraged him. Stone's random dart, in fact, hurt more than all his most elaborate artillery.

To be called "Saint Richard," to be thought a prig. . . . !

Of actual conflict he could bear any quantity; he had in fact begun to gain a savage joy from it; but to be classed in the whole House's eyes with the good little boys in the tracts, who go about reforming every one, with halos under their school-caps:--no, this he could not by any means endure. Truly, if the word "prig" had never been invented, Satan would have idler hands. Many people can survive blame or opposition: but it takes a strong man indeed to bear praise for goodness or the name of Saint!

Dick then, at eighteen, could scarcely be expected to stand out against it. So far, with slight intervals of doubt, he had followed the right path by intuition. Stoked, so to speak, in the School House with decent instincts, his soul had an impulse in the best direction and had turned with a natural antipathy from the Willieites and all their ways. He had set himself to make the hole respectable. That was how Dick Hunter put it. He would make Willie's into a good House: it was his Job: and he had never thought of any higher, moral aspect in the matter.

Now with Stone's nickname of Saint Richard, he became self-conscious. He saw himself suddenly as he now imagined that the House had always seen him. Every one thought him a prig!

As he looked back, he could see how that view fitted in with his behaviour. Nobody in Wilson's knew why he had changed his House, so that to all of them he must seem the Good Boy brought in to redeem their wickedness, and willing to sacrifice the School House games for that self-flattering job! . . .

If Stone had but guessed it, his final shaft, sped when the day seemed altogether lost, was that which had gone deepest and hurt most sorely of them all. Dick felt a sudden revulsion from the whole affair, with all its infinite misunderstandings. The opinion of Stone and the others, which he had so lately dismissed as of no importance, became a very big matter indeed. Once again he sighed for escape from Willie's and its endless problems, escape to the School House and all the old delights of friendship.

Utterly ignoring Stone's remark, with a weak pretence of not having heard it, he flung his boots down on the boarded floor and sat limply on the edge of his bed with an open despair new in himself and quite amazing to the triumphant Stone, who found himself wondering what could have happened. After so much praise he had expected Hunter to be more self-satisfied than ever! Even new boys, who never notice anything worth while, observed that their Monitor had got the blues; and seeing two letters held in his limp hand, wondered if he had got bad news from home.

Dick presently realized that he was attracting this attention and pulled himself together.

"I say, Sell," he cried, "take this letter along to Gwatkin, in B:" and he tore open the envelope addressed to himself.

It held a letter from his father, and as he read the opening words, the last vestige of his listlessness disappeared as though by magic. He turned the pages rapidly, and read the whole thing through and through again, as if unable to believe.

That was all, except for the formula of ending; but Dick, having read it twice, found himself with more than enough food for thought.

Everything, all life, suddenly appeared quite different, brighter.

The School House once again!

That term as Captain of School Footer back in the old, loved surroundings; among the old, loved friends; with no need for those horrible misunderstandings, no necessity to feel afraid of having been too much in the School House! Alan--Priestley--Phelps; the fun and freedom of that glorious Caput, so different from Willie's! To be popular again, to feel that everybody liked you, every one was keen to help, instead of feeling an overseer, forcibly driving men who hated you. No need to find an end for the great problem of Stone, no need to be thought a prig any longer, to be called Saint Richard, to bully into keenness smugs who wanted to be slack,--why, Life was simply wonderful!

It was, in fact, a new Dick Hunter--or rather, the old Dick Hunter,--who now sat on his bed-edge.

Stone, unluckily, had not observed the change. Encouraged by the Monitor's obvious discouragement, he thought that he had found a good chance to begin his old ways afresh, and at the moment he had wandered across the room to where young Ogilvie, stripped to the waist, was washing himself harmlessly enough.

"Jolly well take some of your lift off," was his therefore inappropriate order.

"I'm not doing anything, Stone," answered Ogilvie with spirit. He felt safe in A.

"Well, I am," came Stone's retort, and he caught him a subtle whack with a hair-brush just where some clothing muffled the sound of wood upon flesh.

Dick, however, heard.

"Stone," he said firmly, "go back to your bed. And if I ever see any more bullying up here, you'll get a dozen with that brush."

Stone was amazed. Hunter all of a sudden seemed himself, more than himself, again. . . .

No matter! The fact that he had been so down upon his luck just now showed that he wasn't sure of winning. No use giving in too soon! A dozen with the hair-brush,--him: what cheek!

So that as he obediently went back to his own corner, he murmured audibly, "Wait until next term, though," with all the courage of three months ago.

Dick heard, but gave no answer beyond a contemptuous smile.

Next term! . . .

Directly after first chapel on Sunday, he hurried to the School House.

Priestley was in Alan's study and to Dick, bursting with the news that he was hardly able to restrain, it seemed eternity before he went.

Alan, as the door shut, started on some topic of the School, but Dick broke in on him impatiently.

"What do you think, A?" he asked, with shining eyes, and his whole being seemed to bubble with the joy of life.

"Why, what, Dick?" Here was the old Hunter, suddenly.

"I'm coming back to the School House," he said, trying to speak calmly.

"You're not?" cried Alan with incredulity; and almost in one breath, "I always knew you would."

Dick, irrepressible by now, laughed at his friend's double view and smacked him with offensive violence upon the back. "I'll stir you all up, next term," he cried. . . . "The pater's not bankrupt at all, and everything's A1, and Willie's can----" He stopped and laughed again, as he turned that Houses' doom to nothing more shocking than looking after itself once more. Then his face clouded suddenly. "All the same," he said very seriously, "it's rather rough luck on old Weary Willie, and he's a ripper, too."

"Oh, hang Weary Willie," exclaimed Alan. "He can find some one ever so much better! It's us you've got to think of, my son. We shall have you for the Footer and the House Fours, and--by gad, yes--you must get back into this study and we'll make up the same old table for Hall, too, and in the summer we'll have our scratch four again and go bathing up the river."

"By Jove! it will be ripping," said Dick, and his face was lit up with the same joy as his friend's.

The end of this term, which was to be his last in Wilson's, revived in him all the emotions he had felt four years or more ago.

The day before the holidays, for small boys, is a term-long dream, and yet more glorious reality. Theirs is the fierce joy of blacking out the very last examination on that carefully made chart; the fond delight of writing a familiar and loved address upon their labels; the pride of going to the carpenter's shop for that overmantel with a dozen shelves or for that three- legged stool, the work of many lock-ups, which they feel confident their mother will adore.

To the bigger boys, for whom these simple pleasures have been spoilt by time, it is a rather dreary afternoon. Packing has put a veto on all games, except a first eleven match of no especial interest. Robbed of their flannels, they stroll about aimlessly, feeling rather like new kids, and almost envy such bored and querulous officials as Club secretaries, the paper's editor, and others who have terminal accounts to settle at this season.

For Dick, this term, there was no such superior feeling. Sunday and Monday were days of delirious excitement. He was a new kid again, in soul! Never had he so counted the hours: never did they pass so slowly! But at last Tuesday morning came, and with it a ramshackle cab. Dick said no farewells. His father had told him to say nothing to Wilson himself, and of the members of the House who was there?

But none the less it was with an air of finality, like one who closes an unpleasant chapter in his life, that he leapt eagerly into the stuffy cab that seemed to him as wonderful as any fairy coach because it was to carry him for ever from the miseries and conflicts of this wretched House.

Dick travelled homewards in something not very far from ecstasy, with a pulsing joy and sense of excitement that had been lacking at these moments since his first year at School. He felt like a prisoner freed unexpectedly from long, rigorous confinement; freed, too, with the prospect of a more than compensating joy. Already, to one living in the happy future, all the misery of those past weeks seemed something distantly remembered from long years ago, if not indeed a dimly heard experience of some one else or a recounted nightmare. The papers and magazines that he had bought were all impossible. His whole being found itself busy with the strain of readjustment to the new splendour of his life, of trying to believe that it was really true, and of making an effort not to burst into loud songs of joy, an action sure to startle that old lady in the corner.

The meeting with his father proved all the more wonderful to both, because each secretly remembered that reunion at the last term's end, with its so different circumstances. Dick leapt from the train, a smile of welcome on his face instead of that grown-up, sulky glare, whilst even the Colonel, as he had promised, appeared miraculously younger. Alert, happy, and well-groomed, he put his arm upon Dick's shoulder in quite a school-boy manner and pressed it lovingly, as they strolled along to see about the luggage.

"Well, how are you, old boy?" he said, and Dick answered, "First-rate," without hesitation.

They said nothing about what filled both their minds until the sociable moment when tea was finished and its tray removed. There was the easy silence of contentment in the little garden for some minutes after Neville, an old- time soldier servant, had gone into the house, and then Colonel Hunter between the puffs of a cheroot embarked upon the topic of their thoughts.

Now that it had come, Dick scarcely listened. Little enough did all these details and these figures mean to him--except that they meant everything: it was all right! Until he actually heard it from his father's lips, there had been growing in his mind a quite unreasonable fear that it could not be possible: the letter had been a mistake.

It had not seemed possible, and now it was all right; everything true, not just a splendid dream, but something to be lived next term! No more Willie's; no more----

Dick, wandering off again along this easy path of thought, so tempting to him after all the misery of these last weeks, was brought up sharp by a change in his father's voice. He had got to the end of all that business-talk, and he was saying something that fitted in well with his son's reflections.

"So there's an end of Willie's and your feuds and troubles," he said genially, as he slammed his sheaf of papers down upon the little table: "I know it will be a relief to you."

Was there a slight emphasis on that last word? Did some unconscious note of condescension--no, of fond allowance for a weaker but loved son--creep into the father's voice? What was it, otherwise, that drove Dick's rambling fancies sharply off their happy pasture-ground and brought them to a region where they would not be?

Impossible to say what it is that changes a fixed mind or dictates a resolve: but certainly, at those few guileless words from Colonel Hunter, Dick's whole view of things swung round with such abruptness as to leave him groping.

Until now, it had not seemed possible that there was any course to be debated except his return to the School House. His father, Alan, he himself, every one had taken that for granted, now that the financial need to be at Wilson's was removed: he was not likely to stay there of his own free will! Yes, truly it would come as a relief. . . . It was the obvious thing to do.

And now, of a sudden, it appeared like something very different: the easy thing, the mean and feeble thing. To leave poor old Willie in the lurch just because his help was no more needed; to let the House slip back into its old, bad way; to drop the job that he had undertaken, before he had seen it through. And Alan, he himself--his father had taken it for granted.

Why had his father taken it for granted?

The self-accusing answer hurried in: because he had been weak before. Four months ago, his father had expected that he would be strong. He had been weak, and so his father had revised his estimate, and looked for less from him. He took it for granted, now, that he would choose the easy, comfortable, feeble way. . . . It never occurred to him, now, that his son should think of Wilson or of his unfinished job. He only looked for him, as once before, to think of popularity and comfort. There did not even seem a choice. He took the easy way for granted. . . .

Swift and chaotic memories, thoughts, accusations, surged across Dick's mind, but always with that last fact dominant, his father's lack of faith in him, and with the knowledge that it was deserved.

He had thought once of Wilson--for a moment. It had seemed rough luck on him, and then the wonder of his own happiness had driven all else from his pulsing brain. Alan, the footer ties, the comradeship, the dear old study, all the fun of those remembered days; such were the things that had filled his mind, and there had not been room for any thought of others.

Now he could not help thinking of poor old Willie, who had trusted to him so entirely, left everything to him, who had said that next term was "the time," who had been so splendid to him in the moment of his weakness and spared him in the moment of humiliation. He could not help thinking of Stone, left in triumph to say that he had driven out St. Richard; of Stone, who would boast that Hunter had funked his threat, "Wait until next term, though;" of Stone, left to take vengeance on the juniors for siding with his enemy. He thought of young Eyre, a sportsman if there ever was one, sliding back through the mere lack of strength to fight alone; engulfed in the slack, cynical, world-weary attitude of Willie's. He thought, too, of the whole House, that had been just beginning to awake, now dropping back once more into its easy slumber. But he thought, most of all, that he would not have seen the business through. . . .

Those words of Colonel Hunter's, down in the old tuck-shop months ago, had stuck as only the dissembled scorn of a loved one can stick. He had been feeble and the older man had said those few words, forced him to be strong. Ever since he had been bitterly ashamed, because his father had thought him stronger than he was. He had wished a hundred times that he had done the proper thing, alone: and because he had not: his father did not even think it possible, this time. He took the easy way for granted! . . .

Colonel Hunter, meanwhile, whose hours with Dick were passed largely in a comfortable silence, had no idea of all this turmoil and puffed happily at his cheroot.

"You know, pater," Dick startled him by saying, "I think it'd be rather rough luck on Willie."

There was something strained about his voice. Colonel Hunter, looking up at him curiously, guessed at length the conflict that was raging in him, and his heart was filled with a great joy.

"You think it would be rough on him?" he echoed.

Dick had guessed rightly. The wonderful faith of an adoring father, who expected youthful indecision to rival a man's tried strength of purpose, had been shaken rudely: and now that unexpectedly the idol seemed about to raise itself upon its higher pedestal again, this time--at any rate--he would not help it. He merely echoed his remark.

"You see," Dick said, like one arguing, "he reckoned on me for the year at least; and after all, it wouldn't be quite cricket, after he was so decent to us then, to chuck him now we can afford to, would it?"

But Colonel Hunter would not stretch out any helping hand. Nobody should say that this was his decision! . . . Yet none the less, his heart beat painfully.

"After all," Dick went on presently; and now it seemed that he was arguing against himself, "it won't be the same thing now, will it? Now that--now we're paying, I can go to the School House, you see, without Willie objecting; and besides the House is getting better every week and I dare say fellows from the other Houses will start coming in there soon. . . ." His father, watching anxiously this boy who scarcely seemed to heed his presence, saw a sad expression come into his face, the look of one who thrusts aside perforce a very splendid vision, and for a moment his heart almost ceased to beat. Here was the crisis for a loving pilot, who yet at this moment for pride's sake must refuse his aid! And then Dick's mind seemed to hark back, for he said dreamily: "It'd be rather rough luck on poor old Weary Willie."

Perhaps he really did not know that he was reasoning aloud, for suddenly he pulled himself together and said, with the hasty firmness of one who spurs himself to an unwelcome duty, "You know, pater, I think I'd rather stick to Wilson."

Dick, forced once along the hard way, could now renounce the easy way, because through suffering he had learnt the meaning of Responsibility. His father had told him that it would be better for him if he decided to go through. Well, he had gone through; inwardly with hesitation and dismay, but outwardly, to Medwin and the rest, with all the force of a sledge-hammer. And this was his reward, the moment when he could realize that he owed a duty to Wilson, a duty to himself; the moment when he saw in his father's eyes a look so very, very different from that, never to be forgotten, which he had seen before.

"All right, old boy. I thought so, probably," was all his father said. But to Dick these last four words, coming from him, made up for almost all that he had sacrificed.

It was only natural that Dick Hunter, being above all things human, should re- enter Wilson's with an unwilling step and a sad heart. It was all very well, very well indeed, to know that you had done the proper thing, to feel that your father thought you less of a weak rotter, but--but Willie's seemed a more miserable hole than ever, its passages more gloomy, its occupants less glad to see you, simply because there had been the prospect of escape. All those splendid visions of jolly times with Alan and the others, back in the School House again, must go, and ahead there lay merely two more terms as hated slave-driver at Willie's!

Stone, when he asked him how he did, leered in a triumphant way and answered, "Splendidly." The Head Boy's obvious dejection encouraged him in the belief that Hunter was bored with the whole business. Now, if ever,--with the House easily reminded of that joke, "Saint Richard,"--was the moment to drive the interfering idiot back to his own precious pals!

He must do something, yes. But what?

Stone had never quite forgotten his experience in Caput. That must not occur again. . . .

When, however, he looked around and saw young Eyre as Monitor of the dormitory that had once been his, he decided that he must do something, certainly. When he looked around for what to do,--he finally decided that he would not do it. Discretion of late counted more to him than valour. He had not even dared to do more than mutter darkly when Medwin--Medwin, of every one!--had actually told him to get back to his study during lock-up. The last insult of being rebuked by Eyre he had avoided only through not breaking any rules: that, by an odd innovation, was the sole manner of so doing nowadays in Willie's. The Monitorial Power was no longer a mere name. Hunter inspired Eyre to do his best to keep the House in order; and Medwin, noting his new colleague's energy and the obedience that even his seniors had unwillingly to give him, was spurred by very shame to do his best. Hence the order, actually, for Stone to get back into his study!

What really upset Stone was the thought, always coming with more force upon him, that he could have been quite a good cricketer; rowed better than Cunningham; certainly kept the fellows in order better than young Eyre,--if he had only cared to try.

Why had he not tried?

Best it was who had put him off, Best with his "clever" sneers at any one who wanted to do anything.

He was coming to dislike Best. In fact he had come to dislike and to despise him, but he would not go about with Eyre or Medwin, Hunter he knew would not go about with him, and all the other Willieites were not worth worrying about at all. So he still walked or slacked and grumbled with Best, when neither of them was up for a game.

One of these rare occasions--in the second week of term,--found them loitering idly along a rustic lane about two miles from Sherborough. Each of them, naturally, had a cigarette stuck in his mouth, for why otherwise should a man, who was a man, walk two miles along a rotten lane upon a sunless, windy day?

"I know one thing," said Stone, upon his favourite topic; "I jolly well wish I'd left two terms ago."

"Serves us right," agreed Best, "for coming to such a beastly hole as Willie's."

He often failed nowadays to satisfy his master. "It's not that," Stone answered irritably, "it isn't such a hole now as it was. But--I don't know-- it's all so rotten somehow: all these little swines of kids coming on at things and every one as keen as anything, and somehow one's all out of it. You sort of feel the little beasts think you a rotter, just like Hunter does, and only wait for you to leave so that Willie's may get really decent! . . . And hang it all," he added with a sudden emphasis, "I feel a rotter too myself."

Best was rather shocked. He hid his surprise under a forced laugh. "You must be ill, Brick," he said. "You're gettin' so jolly serious!" He clipped his g quite unintentionally, but decided that it sounded rather sporting. He would always do it in future.

"Oh, shut up, you silly little sneering ass!" roared Stone with some violence. "I am serious,--for once: I've made a mess of it, thanks to your dirty sneers, and I'm sick of the whole bally thing!"

This would not do at all! No use arguing with the old fool, if he felt like that. Jolly irritable lately. . . . Probably a bit sore still about young Eyre? . . .

"Give us a light," he said in cold matter-of-fact tones. "I'm no use at striking matches in a wind like this."

The ruse succeeded, as Best's usually did. Stone, busy with his thoughts, obediently halted, puffed his cigarette to get its end red, and then held it out to Best.

Deep in this business, they did not notice an approaching figure, and the wind blew away all sound until the newcomer was close upon them. Then suddenly hearing footsteps, Stone swung guiltily about.

"Hullo, Meddler!" he said in pleasant tones and some relief.

On a first vision of the familiar school straw-hat (worn in rain or snow alike), his heart had leapt uncomfortably. They were well out of bounds, and no one probably would join them there except a Prefect or House Monitor. Either was awkward at the moment. But Medwin, thought both, really did not count as either! A real piece of good luck. . . . He put his cigarette back in his mouth.

"Hullo," said Medwin dubiously.

He had an awkward feeling that he ought to do something, anyhow say it, about bounds and smoking.

"It's no use offering you one?" asked Best in his Clubman voice. "I know you don't smoke."

Medwin did not answer for some seconds: he was thinking.

Two terms ago, he certainly would not have even stopped to think: he would have passed rapidly along. Two terms ago, however, he had not come into touch with Hunter, seen his fearlessness and felt himself a coward. Two terms ago, he had not had those guilty qualms that he was doing nothing for the House or heard Hunter's kind retort, "You've helped a lot lately as Monitor." . . . Besides, these two had annoyed him by taking it for granted that he would say nothing. If they had thrown away their cigarettes in haste, he might--in fact, he knew he would--have made a bad pretence of never having noticed them. But they had bluffed it out and made him feel ashamed.

They knew that he would funk!

That, scarcely less than any thought of the strong Hunter, was what lent courage to this weak Medwin. They thought that he would funk!

"I suppose you know," he began, finding a vague strength in the official formula which he had lately come to use, "that you're about a mile outside the bounds?"

Stone was flabbergasted. His one idea was to take it as a joke. "Of course we do, my good Meddler! Should we smoke inside them? Too many masters about, thank you!" He laughed with obviously false assurance, and Best nervously joined in. The last-named was not sure, for Meddler lately had been inclined to justify his name. . . .

There was a tendency that way on this occasion.

"Well, have you got leave?" he asked more or less like any ordinary Prefect, though with a shaky voice.

Stone realized that there was every necessity for firmness. "Leave?" he said in mock horror. "Now, my dear Meddler, haven't you known me for years? Have I ever asked for leave? I wouldn't trouble poor old Willie. Besides I'm an ex- Monitor. Of course I've not got leave! Pass along, please: pass along."

Best grinned with sickly appreciation. He did not at all like old Medwin's look, and was not sure that he would pass along.

The Prefect himself had decided that it was useless to prolong the game. He brought out his trump card at once.

"All right then," he said, trying vainly to reach the level tones he would have used in catching a junior out of bounds. "I suppose you realize, for that and smoking, I shall have to give you both a Book?" (Virgil is Sherborough's standard of punishment.)

In spite of himself, he spoke almost as though in apology. After all, Stone was not a junior, and though this would make no difference to any other Prefect, he himself--well, he had been weak and let Stone bully him! The realization of that fact and the shame it brought urged him to be strong at last, but its memory inclined him to be weak again. One cannot live one's past down in a moment.

Stone, however, did not seem to notice any deprecating note about the Meddler's voice, to judge from his resentment.

"What?" he almost bellowed.

"I'm afraid I shall have to," said poor, feeble Medwin, who ought of course to have walked on at once. "I can't make any difference, can I, through our having been--friends?" As he said that last word, it sounded ironical.

"Blow `friends'," cried Stone, who apparently had noticed the same thing: "but you're jolly well mistaken if you imagine I'm going to do any Book for you, so just understand that straight away, my good `friend' Meddler. It may save you trouble."

He spoke in a manner distinctly truculent.

He had endured a good deal in these last few months. From tyrant and virtual Head of the House he had fallen to be nobody, not even Monitor: and he could not prevent it, because this fellow Hunter had not only Authority but a strength far superior behind him. Medwin, however, was another matter: Medwin, who last term had not dared to say a word even to the newest junior; whom he had often in the old days thrashed for cheek; Medwin, whom even as Monitor he had barged scornfully into the passage-wall! A Book from Medwin? That would be the last word in humiliation. It was not possible. That swine Hunter with all his clap-trap about keenness had spurred the rotter on to this: but--he would see! A Book from Medwin? No!

Best smiled in an aimless, non-committal way, and held his tongue. He was an expert at seeing which way cats or Monitors would jump.

And for an instant the Prefect's instinct most certainly was to leap back. Stone's air was menacing and he had always been afraid of him. Besides, it did seem a bit curious to be giving a Book to a man who had been a fellow- Monitor! Of course, there was no need to seem to have been frightened by his threats. . . . One could just laugh it off or pretend one had been joking. . . . And, of course, Stone would be grateful and much more decent after this: whereas, the other way, things in Willie's would be pretty uncomfortable. . . .

But suddenly two memories rushed across his mind and turned it from the easy way. One was of Weary Willie's speech, that every one had so condemned, and the other was of Dick. . . .

Would it be worth while to win comfort, to win Stone's gratitude, at the sacrifice of self-respect? There were many ways to popularity, Wilson had said, but the easiest was through respect. Stone would merely despise him if he funked now: and it was nothing else. He would tell every one that Medwin had not dared give him a Book. And Hunter, in the end, would hear.

That weighed the most with Medwin. What would Hunter think, Hunter who must despise him so already, Hunter who was so strong, who went right through to his set end without ever considering persons or unpopularity? . . . (That was what Willie's, as a whole, believed, for Dick alone knew the secret of his own weak moments.)

Stone with a cynical smile watched Medwin's face, in which doubt, fear, and pride fought for supremacy. Presently as no words came, he threw away his cigarette which had gone out during the argument.

"So that's all right then, Meddler, is it?" he said in more friendly tones.

"How all right?" Medwin was only trying to gain time. There were so many things to weigh.

"Why, I mean, we're not going to do any Books or anything of that sort?"

His calm superiority was the one thing needed to settle Medwin's course of action.

"I don't know whether you're going to do them," he said with an air of combat quite new in him: "that's your business, though you know what happens if you don't;--but I've got to give them you. You'll both do the sixth Book and show it up by Friday night."

Best looked very sulky, like a punished hound.

"By gad!" cried Stone with terrifying slowness.

At the old war-cry, heard less often lately, his lieutenant gazed up at him as at the source from whence (possibly) might come salvation.

Medwin at last took the wise course of moving.

"Half a sec., my boy," Stone shouted after him, and Medwin from long training halted at the word.

At that the other's eyes lit up with triumph. He knew that he had got his man in hand.

"Look here," he said sternly, as though he were the Monitor and Medwin a small, errant boy: "we've got to settle this out here. If you once go back and say you've given us a Book, you'll find it darned hard to get out of it."

Medwin was not as grateful as might have been expected for this considerate thought. Once back in Sherborough, he would not want to get out of it a bit! What he was anxious to escape from was his present situation. Once at the school again, he was simply one of the Sixth Form who had given two Fourth Form fellows a Book, and he would have the whole support of the System behind him: he would be a Prefect, whose person is inviolable. "Out here,"-- well, he was not sure. Stone looked in a rather nasty mood.

"There's nothing to settle," he said and began to move away again.

"Isn't there?" roared the other and seized him by the arm. "We'll soon see about that!" He spoke in the known Bully's Formula: it was quite like old times again! "Now then, my boy, are you going to drop all this humbug or have I darned well got to make you?" He clenched a fist suggestively.

Medwin was almost comically helpless. Held firmly by the arm, with a pugilistic hand below his nose, he seemed to have a fairly definite choice between a lapse of Duty and a blackened eye.

"I can't drop it," he said, as though he nearly wished he could.

"Oh can't you?" echoed Stone and with his right fist caught him a well- calculated blow beneath the jaw. It would not leave a mark which might be awkward, but it would make this idiot think. "Well, just see if that helps you then?" (Remember, he had tamed Medwin a dozen times before.)

The Prefect got up in a dazed way that was very humorous, if either of the onlookers had been in any mood to laugh. He was not used to the Manly Art of Self-Defence with all its inevitable pains, and as he slowly raised himself, he blinked like some one who emerges from the water after a long ducking. Retaliation was the last thing to occur to him. He did not even try to walk away. He merely stood there, as though waiting for a second blow. Mathematics, somehow, do not fit a man for life's more rugged moments.

Stone gripped him fiercely by the arm again.

"Now then," he said, "do you want another? There are lots more where that came from, and we've an hour yet till lock-up! So hurry up, my boy, and say you're bored with that sixth Book idea!"

Best actually laughed: he felt sure enough by now which way this cat would leap. Stone clenched his fist again, and raised it to the proper angle for that nicely placed blow underneath the chin. Medwin, like one hypnotized, looked at it nervously,--and thought. Even he did not see this scene lasting for another sixty minutes.

Stone had the game in his own hand: so much was clear. Of course, Medwin realized, he could get him expelled for what he had already done: but even if that would not be suspiciously like sneaking, it certainly was a confession of weakness to the School at large. How it would laugh at the idea of a Prefect giving a Book but receiving a right-hander, mildly, in exchange! Again, if Stone gave him a black eye, the thing would come out of itself and he would get the sack: but if he knew Stone's methods, there would be no decisive marks. . . .

Yes, ignominious as it was, whilst he gazed apprehensively at that hard fist, he found no other way than to swallow his pride, and sure that he must finally give in, give in at once without any further exhibition of the fistic art.

What journalists love to call the "third alternative" did not occur to either him or Stone, till it appeared in the concrete form of Weary Willie. The House Master, cycling along the main road not two hundred yards away, had been urged to dismount by the wind-borne sound of boyish voices raised in angry conflict.

He now suddenly burst through a hedge, and found himself gazing down upon the tableau of a Prefect of his school, a Monitor of his House, being held firmly by a Fourth Form boy and threatened with a very business-like fist underneath his nose.

While he stood for one moment in amaze, the picture changed.

"All right then," said Stone, as though grudgingly reconciling himself to necessity.

Thud! and the Prefect-Monitor was on his back again.

At the same instant, Best's face turned to a pale green.

Stone, following his horror-stricken eyes, swung around and faced his House Master, up on the hedge-bank.

"What's all this about?" asked Weary Willie, somewhat after a policeman's manner.

Neither Best nor Stone, for once, had any repartee to offer. Medwin, raising himself again in a discouraged way and blinking, found that the answer lay with him.

"I've given them a Book for being out of bounds and smoking," he said, as though that fully explained this extraordinary scene.

"'M!" said Wilson eloquently.

Something about that made Medwin feel ashamed once more. What a fine Prefect, who could not give a Book without this kind of sequel! Yet how could he have helped it? . . . The mistake, as often, had been long ago: if he had been less weak then, he would not now have found it so hard to be strong: no one would have looked for anything but strength. . . .

The House Master, deep in his thoughts, gazed absently at a very hang-dog trio.

"Stone and Best, get back to the House," he said presently. "I want a word with you, please, Medwin."

Silent and despairing, the two smokers faded out of sight along the lane. And scarcely with more confidence, the wronged Prefect stood waiting for the promised "word."

Dick, having enjoyed a good game of football with the other members of the School eleven, was having a bad quarter of an hour all by himself.

Somehow or other, this term was no better than the last. During the holidays he had made such wonderful resolves, and now----! Even the excitement of hand-to-hand battle with Stone was nowadays denied him: and Willie's, if possible, seemed a worse place than ever to him in this gloomy moment before he changed into his ordinary clothes.

That last was just what he would do. Anything better than inaction: anything better than thought! He got up weakly and went along the passage towards the changing-room.

He was near Caput when Stone and Best came round the corner, talking in low, serious tones and with uncommonly long faces. As he passed them, they suddenly fell silent and Stone glared at him.

They certainly had an odd look, and such an early return on a day free for some long, adventurous excursion was curious; but Dick would probably not have thought much more about it, had not a few moments later presented to his gaze Medwin and Weary Willie, appearing hardly less peculiar. The House Master was clearly worried: the Monitor, Dick thought, ashamed.

Medwin, like Stone and Best, was wearing the straw-hat appointed for use by Sherburians who walk beyond the precincts of the School, whilst his companion wheeled a bicycle. Somehow or other, Dick could not help connecting the four in a single episode, although its nature baffled him.

The promise of action, however, came as a godsend to him in his present mood, so that he gave up the idea of changing, turned after a polite interval, and followed the last half of this mysterious quartette.

He arrived upon the drama's stage just one moment after the master had told Medwin to send Stone along to him. He was thus exactly in time to meet this last going to his doom, very sulky and proud, strolling along the corridor with a chill stare at his old enemy; superbly like a noble of the Revolution peacocking to meet the guillotine. And as a contrast in the attitude of strong Vice and weak Virtue to a time of stress, at the passage's far end he came on Medwin, pale indeed with the stupor of the criminal condemned to death, and more than ever like a frightened rabbit.

He drew him into number eight, and had almost extracted the real story from a mass of irrelevant side-issues, mainly consisting of excuses, when a firm tap came upon the door.

"Come in," he shouted and turned round.

It was Stone, a strange excitement gleaming in his eyes but his face like a mask.

"Willie wants you," he said with cold impudence, and hurried out. There was something ineffable about the mingled familiarity and scorn that he managed to put into the one word, "Willie."

The House Master was at his desk, looking much more a pedagogue than usual and very serious.

"Sit down, Hunter," he said shortly. "I sent for you because I think that, as my Head Boy, you ought to know at once that I have felt bound to expel Stone."

"To expel him, sir?" repeated Dick, not knowing what to say and in some odd manner taken aback by the expected news. It seemed such a big thing, somehow!

"I have told the boy already," went on the other, unheeding and almost to himself, "and am now going down to see the Head Master. It is a big step, but----" Then as though he suddenly realized his Head Boy's presence, "Perhaps Medwin has told you what occurred?"

"Yes, sir," said Dick; and a long silence followed. The master sat gazing at the books in the book-case across the room, and Dick, as usual, stared at the fender. Both were thinking, and each in some way felt himself alone.

Wilson was the first to rouse himself, "Well, Hunter?" he asked, so abruptly as to startle Dick. Perhaps it was partly for this reason that the Head Boy's thoughts came out in a rough, undecorated form, scarcely appropriate to the occasion.

"I think I'm sorry, in some ways," he answered simply.

"Sorry. . . ." Weary Willie repeated the word in such an odd manner that Dick had much ado to smother down a laugh. "Why sorry? You think there's good in him?"

"I don't know, sir," Dick said. Rather a big question, even for a senior boy! But Dick remembered that offer to play cricket and had not missed the growing scorn for Best. "It's only----" and there he broke off.

"Only what, Hunter?" Wilson felt interested, as a student of boys.

"I don't know, sir," once more said this disappointing Hunter.

"I should have thought," began the other, "that Stone's removal would have come as rather a relief? We both know that it is really he who has been behind everything, all through."

But now his Head Boy was entirely silent. He was thinking.

Stone certainly had been behind everything, all through. So far as slackness, so far as opposition went, Stone was Willie's: that much the newcomer had realized at once. The fight had been with him, all through: the victories won from him, and out of his successes the discouragement . . . the weakness. His absence a relief? It would be everything. Dick saw a willing House, slaving to be keen, Eyre growing a good friend for him, and Best a pariah. It would be everything--except a victory! Stone would not have been defeated; or if he had, the triumph would be Willie's. And in this moment of reaction from despair, Dick Hunter had the lust for victory; he longed to feel that he had gone right through and slowly ground the opposition down. Above all, he longed to show his father that he was not a weak rotter.

But how could he say this to Wilson? How could he explain that, with his enemy so nearly tamed, he did not wish another to come in and deal the final blow? It might seem that he was indeed a prig, hankering selfishly for a lost self-respect!

The master's eyes were on him, waiting.

"Why are you sorry, Hunter?" he asked again.

"Well----" began Dick, hesitating, "well, it seems rough luck."

"Why rough luck?" There was a certain monotony about the cross- examination.

Now Dick hesitated more than ever. "I don't know," he said vaguely. "But it always does seem, especially for a House offence . . . and we want him for the football; I don't know where else we shall get a back."

Wilson of course was not deceived, although he did not understand. He knew roughly the trend of his Head Boy's mind. More he could not guess, except that he would not be told. He now abandoned all attempts to get at the real working of this curious fellow's brain, and went straight at what he knew to be the point of the whole situation.

"In fact, Hunter, you don't want him to go? It isn't really a House matter, is it?" (and he smiled) "--but you do not want him to go. Is that it, Hunter?"

Dick was startled into agreement: "Yes, sir."

Wilson was not often puzzled by his boys, but here was an exception. Hunter, of course, had come to him late and that was an excuse; but he wished that he could make out exactly why the Head Boy should object to the removal of his strongest enemy. Up till now, he had not suspected Hunter of being keen for conflict and unpopularity, but rather the reverse.

His strongest enemy. . . . Suddenly that thought conjured up another to this man who knew boys so well. He wondered that it had not come to him before. This Hunter, of course, felt bound to intercede from the mere fact that Stone had been his enemy. To do so for a friend, would seem like favouritism in a Head Boy: not to do so for an enemy would be accounted spite! It was so hopelessly, so splendidly, like boys.

"You know, Hunter," he said gently, "you mustn't let your generous feelings towards a rival influence you----"

"I'm not," Dick blazed out, before he could say more; and Weary Willie, always rapid at retrieving errors, hurriedly began afresh.

"As a matter of fact, Hunter," he said in quite another tone, "I was largely guided by what I thought would be your feelings. Of course I haven't failed to see, though I've said nothing, where all the opposition to reform came from, and--well, I won't say I was glad of an excuse, but I admit I thought that with Stone gone, you would have a freer hand this term."

"Oh yes, sir," Dick exclaimed.

"And yet you want him to stay on?" Weary Willie, by an odd trick of his, suddenly became alert and flashed a quick look at his Head Boy. There was admiration, there was almost respect, there was above all a late comprehension, in that glance, and Dick felt unaccountably ashamed. He nodded silently.

"I see," the master slowly answered. "I quite see, and I'm glad. . . ." Then, in quite different tones, "But I'm afraid, Hunter, he must go, all the same. There are some things fatal to discipline, fatal to the whole Public School idea, and striking a Præpostor is among them. I'm afraid," he added slowly, "I think our House will be better without Stone. But it is a terrible responsibility. These are the moments when I would give my life to be anything except a master. . . . I hope perhaps Stone will do well somehow. . . . In many ways he is a plucky fellow. . . . Yes, a plucky fellow. . . . Lots of go about him. . . ."

His words grew slower and gentler. He played absently with the paper-knife before him. He seemed to have forgotten his Head Boy.

After what seemed long minutes he stirred himself abruptly and said in brisk tones: "Thank you, Hunter, for everything you've done. Will you send Best to me?"

Best wrote his book of Virgil, after all.

It was, however, a long one--and prefaced by a swishing from the Head.

Stone, on the other hand, did not write his.

It may have consoled him that he thus kept the promise made to Medwin; but no one ever knew, for he was seen no more at Sherborough. He slept in the sick-room, and went away next morning by the 10.15.

His departure did not come as a great sorrow to his House at large. The Willieites had no air of those that mourn, not even for an hour. Best alone showed any grief, and that was largely personal; he saw himself, now, left without protector or ally. Hunter, from this day on, would have him absolutely at his mercy; there was the book to write for Medwin; and the Head wanted him in his study at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. . . . Best, with the prophet's clear vision, saw that his brightest days at Sherborough stretched out behind him. Even his cigarette, hereafter, would be lonely--and dangerous. In fact, taken by a sudden panic, he dropped his stock of smoking matter down a conveniently expansive drain. He would have to postpone being a man of the world, now, till he had ceased to be a schoolboy!

There was really too much against a fellow who wanted to be sportin', don't you know.

Eyre, for one thing, finally assumed his position as a full-fledged Monitor, on Stone's going; and Medwin, too, became almost a martinet--it was his only way of showing keenness!

Dick, noting these improvements, yet felt a curious resentment about Stone's expulsion. It was the feeling a man might have who, just when his rival, after a long tussle, stood outmatched and weaponless before him, suddenly found him shot down by another foe! Medwin had dashed in and robbed Dick of his final victory.

But there was more than that.

Best was a rotter--useless beyond hope; and by his clever tongue he had beguiled Stone to his own slack theory of life; but there had been signs lately that the last-named was rebelling. His offer to play cricket for the House had been a mere first step towards finding his real, keener self. Dick had noted the growing contempt for Best, and rightly guessed that Stone in the end had longed to row in the boat at which he had jeered; would offer to do so, next year. Well, now it was not to be; but he felt that, perhaps, when once he had put Stone completely down, he might conceivably have set him up again, to be a different sort of Monitor in Willie's.

Well, it was not to be. Stone must work out his salvation, away in the big world; and, meanwhile, the House decidedly had gained.

One saw this in a dozen ways.

Above everything, the juniors no longer felt that to be obviously keen was a sure way of bringing Stone's petty revenges down upon their heads. There was no further need to attend practice games--which they secretly enjoyed--with a long face, or grumble all the time whilst changing.

But Hunter was not really popular, in spite of this; there were too many things enforced by him that did not please. No one in "A" wanted to do his gymnastics; nobody in Willie's wanted to go his House runs; and all missed the jolly old fights and "rags" that used to pass those long winter lock-ups. It was beastly dull to sit quietly in your own study all the time! These were only three of the occasions on which Hunter's iron rule was obeyed but secretly resented.

Dick, naturally, knew this. It might be thought that it would not upset him much, but this was so little the fact that he exaggerated his unpopularity. True, the Willieites grumbled now and then, but all the while, deep down, they respected Hunter as a keen man and a double First and some one altogether splendid. It was just this last point, their admiration, that Dick--rather naturally!--failed to realize.

Another thing that made his troubles harder was the fact that he had nobody with whom to share them. Eyre, despite his new sense of authority, remained a child; Medwin, equally, was still--himself! Dick found nobody of his own tastes, his own ideas, with whom he could talk such things over, and make light of them. Alan and the School House fellows he saw seldom since poor Willie's protest; nor would they have been vastly thrilled by details of the internal politics of Wilson's House! Little things are hard to bear, for one has to carry them alone; and Dick, pleased at the House's progress, and daily feeling greater interest in it, was depressed by the knowledge that though they were doing so much more, they still did some of it against their will, and hated him as some one who disturbed their peace. In the School House he had been a friend, almost (if he had recognized it) a hero; in Wilson's he still remained a mere slave-driver.

He was coming gradually, however, to be more of a hero in his new House also.

As, for instance, under his coaching the Willieites began to get some idea of the science of Football, they came to realize that it was not merely kicking a ball with the right boot. From this it was an easy step to begin to feel that Hunter was a pretty good footballer.

As a matter of fact, he was reputed to be, on this season's form, the best goal Sherborough had so far produced, and Old Boys who came down took it for granted that he would go on to the 'Varsity and get his Blue. That appealed to the new sporting instincts of the Willieites: he obviously had more right to stir them up, if he was certain of his Blue!

Last holidays, too, the Willieites, back in their respective homes, had found parents, sisters and young brothers splendidly appreciative of the fact that they had rowed, or else played cricket, for the House. (It had not seemed necessary to explain that almost every one had been forced to do one or the other!) This glory was distinctly pleasant. "And I suppose you'll get into the football team as well?" proud mothers had remarked. Some had offered half-a- crown, or even half-a-sovereign, if that dizzy height was actually reached.

Besides, Hunter was not only a goalkeeper, but also captain of the School eleven. That appealed to the sporting spirit which was being gradually born in them, even if there had not been something rather grand about being coached by such a swell.

This year, too, unless Rumour lied, the Sefton match would depend a good deal upon the skill of Sherborough's goalkeeper. Sefton, with a particularly strong attack, had defeated Malvern by five goals to one, and its whole fixture-card, till now, showed nothing but success.

This last condition of affairs would not suit Sherborough at all, if carried further. The School was always keen to win this, the great match of the year: but never keener than it was this season. Victory twice in succession had finally wiped off a lead gained long since by its rivals; and now, out of eighteen annual contests, each had won exactly nine. On this match, then, it depended whether Sherborough should tamely fall behind again, or actually have the dizzy joy of being in the van. Unhappily, every one admitted, the School forwards were unusually weak in front of goal; exactly where, so it was said, the Seftonians excelled. That was why Hunter, as the great day approached, gained a new interest for Willieites and others; largely upon his defensive skill, known and admired, depended Sherborough's fate--unless Rumour lied.

Early in the match that fickle person's truthfulness was justified, for once, to a painful degree.

The Sherburian backs, of whom Alan was on the right, found themselves in for the exercise of a lifetime. Wherever they kicked, the ball seemed to flash across their line of vision, and lo! in a moment they must turn and dash in just the opposite direction. It was curiously like the game so popular in children's parties, where a brass ring is passed around and some one in the centre has to find it; except that here it was a ball, and that it nearly always was to be sought well upon one side of centre. Alan and his partner, Bruce, found the game full of interest, but rather tantalizing. When a man came smashing down the field, the ball bouncing between his feet--well, there was a moment that a back might live for; but here the play seemed all in front of Sherborough's goal.

In between its uprights, splendidly alert, strategically central in position, Dick Hunter bobbed and darted from side to side at every fresh alarm, like some mechanical figure that never paused to be wound up again.

Sefton's goalkeeper--not his team's strongest member, but with no need to be--lolled magnificently against the post, legs crossed, and so aroused the wrath of his Sherburian critics as "lifty": but Dick had hardly any time for rest. Scott and Bruce, every one agreed, were on the very top of their best form, and many a rush that had seemed fatal ended in a clear kick from one or other of the backs and wild, hopeful cheers from their supporters. Then a half-back would get the ball, and pass it on to one of Sherborough's forwards. Every one would howl, and Sefton's goalkeeper suddenly deign to stand upright once again. Then--punt! and the ball was once more circling through the air-- this time from the boot of a Seftonian back--and in a moment it was Dick who had to be on the alert. Scott and Bruce were excellent, but so was Sefton's forward-line, and it was five men to two.

Hunter had never in a School match had so much to do, and never done it half so well.

The mere excitement of this constant attack, the danger of the thing, seemed almost to inspire him. Again and again, as a shot went whizzing in, the vast Sherburian crowd drew in its breath, and the few visiting Seftonians prepared to cheer, but, then--a flash of white across the net, and out the ball went once more, well into the field. It was a miracle!

Half-time, and neither side had scored.

Sherborough, in fact, had never looked immensely like it.

"Pla-a-ay up, Sherborough!" the home crowd droned, almost reproachfully, at the whistle's sound. That hoped-for lead in the score of victories began to seem a distant vision; even equality was prayed for now.

"Sefton are jolly good this year," said every one, in not more grudging a spirit than was natural.

"Jolly good," came the dismal reply.

But almost certainly the wind had been against Sherborough in the first half; and hadn't you ever noticed the ground was a bit uphill that way, too? In short, Sherborough would buck up, now, and show them what was what, you'd see!

You didn't.

The story of this second half was that of the first half told again, and in a more exaggerated form. If Sefton had pressed before, they must by now surely have been pushing? More and more did their forwards outwit Sherborough's backs, only to find themselves baulked by Sherborough's goal.

It was the ideal conflict of a strong attack against a strong defence.

As it went on, Sherborough's hopes began visibly to revive. No one was optimist enough to predict that the home team would score, though far more curious things, of course, have happened: the Football records show many a victory quite undeserved, due to one sudden dash from a beleaguered goal. But every one began to feel that Hunter was beyond defeat to-day.

Miracles, by now, were counted the most ordinary things. It would have taken more than that to startle Sherborough.

Cheers, applause, and finally even laughter greeted Dick Hunter's astounding saves: the crowd had grown almost hysterical. And Sefton were coming gradually to despair. It seemed ridiculous to shoot at a goal during a whole match, and never to get through.

Then, just as the visitors were reconciling themselves to a draw, they were suddenly confronted by the worse prospect of defeat.

Perhaps from a feeling of loneliness, their backs had gone well forward, close up on that scrum around the goal. Thus, when Sherborough's outside left, apparently weary of the "passing" game, laudably unselfish but to-day quite ineffective, made a wild rush down the outside line, the backs found themselves rather too well up, and a wild race ensued; all three sprinting in the same direction, two backs and a rival forward.

The excitement, in a moment, was quite indescribable. After eighty minutes of defence, Sherborough had suddenly become offensive: and the School bellowed itself hoarse in approbation.

Unhappily, the backs got there first, in this impromptu race. They had, of course, the trifling start demanded by the off-side laws, and also had the centre of the track: two great advantages outweighing the fact that, at the finish, they must turn and face the enemy.

In any case, when this last, seeing no opportunity to pass, swerved inwards with intent to shoot, he found the Sefton goal duly defended by its keeper and two backs.

One moment, to steady the ball,--a moment of tense silence,--and outside left sent in a gorgeous shot, straight, clean, and high. But there was too much obstacle. Thud! It went against the chest of the left back, who rose to meet it: then it was for him to steady: and in a second, the ball was once more up by the mid-line.

Enterprise, perhaps, is catching: everybody knows that more than one can play at the same game. Whatever the reason, Sefton's centre-forward, a man too burly for his place and not much good as yet, finding the ball temptingly between his feet, appeared of a sudden resolved to adopt these selfish tactics for himself. With Captain and the others roaring "Pass!" he doggedly went on, as though sick of this finicking to-and-fro affair; solidly barged into back and sent him sprawling; retrieved the ball, and whilst Seftonians now cried "Shoot!" proceeded with it, still between his feet, bound grimly for the goal. "Enough of this fancy shooting," seemed his obvious decision: or in the homely advertising phrase, "Use Force."

Hunter might be skilful at the fancy work, but he was equally the man for this aggressive, downright centre-forward.

Watching him eagerly, him and the ball, he waited for that psychological moment when the shot must come. There was no sign of it. Here was a fellow, clearly, who wanted to rush things. His notion was to carry ball, goalkeeper, self, and everything through into the net!

Dick accepted the challenge, with energy. Out he surged upon the burly one.

They came together with a crash, that seemed to tell of broken bones. Mrs. Giffard, who was watching, shut her eyes: as the Head Master's wife, she was in duty bound to watch these "horrible rough games," but she could not endure a sight like this!

When she looked again, the ball was well out in the field, and centre- forward, rather dazed, was looking after it. But Hunter lay upon the ground.

The whistle blew, and some of the players, Alan among them, ran hurriedly towards him.

A deadly silence fell on the spectators. There was more in it than the horrified, suppressed anxiety aroused by any accident in a School match: there was the certainty that, if Hunter were "crocked," the game was absolutely lost.

But in a moment it yielded to overpowering cheers, when, almost as Alan and the others reached him, Dick slowly raised himself and staggered, rather than walked, the few yards back to his place of duty.

Mrs. Giffard noted his white face, his agonizing limp, and she turned to her husband.

"Do order him not to play, George!" she said "I'm quite sure he isn't fit. Just look at him!"

"My dear," answered the Head Master, amused at the idea, "how could I? If he feels fit to play----! Besides, there's only half a minute more: and the School may need him yet."

The final sentence, possibly, may not have been quite logical but its last clause summed up the point of most importance to its speaker--Sherborough might still have need of its goalkeeper!

Also, it proved accurate.

Even whilst all the crowd was peering at its watch and longing for the whistle, discouraged Sefton made a last attempt. Backs out-man*uvred, the goal stood open to a shot.

Now came the anxious moment of the game. Till now, every one had trusted Hunter; it did not seem that he remembered how to fail, to-day: but now--now he stood, leaning slightly to one side, his face drawn with suppressed agony, his hands raised in a gallant, tragic parody of the old watchful attitude.

"Shoot," cried the Sefton captain: and the forward shot.

Up in the right or left top corner, and the match was won: but he shot low. Hunter, by one last effort, flung himself along the ground, and thrust the ball feebly out upon the field. Alan was on it in a moment, and--the whistle blew.

The match was saved: Sherborough still held equality with Sefton in the yearly records. No one, lately, had expected more: few had dared to hope so much.

With wild shouts of joy they dashed towards the goalkeeper, whose game it obviously was, to cheer him.

More slowly than ever, meanwhile, and whiter, he was rising to his feet again. Alan, first to reach him, was alarmed.

"I say, old man," he cried, "what's up? Ankle still bad?"

"I think it's--broken," said Dick, trying to smile and to keep conscious: then he fell back into his friend's arms.

Dick, up in the House sick-room, had time in which to think things over and arrive at some conclusion.

Eyre and Medwin were daily visitors, and from their accounts the House had never been more keen. In their shy way they tried to express the idea that Hunter was greatly missed and his return awaited with impatience: so that Dick slowly came to feel that the Willieites, after all, might not be such an ungrateful set as he always had imagined; might not really regard him merely with the hate of a slave for his master. Above everything, shut up here in this dull, bare-walled room, he began to feel that even the activity of life in Willie's was heaven by comparison.

Had he been rather a rotter, and grumbled at what really was all right? . . . When he looked back, he saw that he had had a very easy time: and now Stone, his one serious enemy, had gone. The House, after this, would come along by leaps and bounds. Lots of fellows would have been jolly glad to have had the chance to set it going. . . . And he remembered how weak and rotten his father had made him feel, when he said he had had an easy time, till now.

That was it! He had wanted always to be comfortable and popular: wanted always to have that same "easy time." . . .

His one consolation, during this period when these thoughts accused him, was in the memory of his father's face at that second interview, last holidays, when he had said: "I'm glad you're going back to Wilson's, old man. But--I thought you would." . . .

Wilson's gratitude perhaps ought also to have cheered the invalid in this period of self-abasement: instead of which, it simply made him feel a fool.

Weary Willie was rather in his House Supper, expansive mood: a rarity that Dick did not appreciate.

"Well," he said, as though embarking forcibly on a duty clear before him, "I shall never be able to thank you as I know I ought to, Hunter; I'm not a good hand at that sort of thing!"

Dick's attempts to stop him were, none the less, of no avail. Wilson became quite a wind-bag, when without his pipe!

"You've raised the House," he went on, doggedly, "to a pitch that, I admit, I thought it would take years to reach. Every one is as keen as can be, now, about the Football; Eyre, and even Medwin, are model Monitors; the House is quiet; and I'm glad to say that, thanks to this accident--don't think I'm glad of it!"--(Dick found it a relief to laugh)--"I don't think we need fear any more unpopularity or booing for you: you are a great hero, Hunter!"

Poor Dick could say nothing. Wilson, at moments, was less jolly than at others!

"And if I may say so," he went on, though both wished it was all over, "it has done you good, too, Hunter; made you stronger; so I don't think that you need regret it?"

"Oh, I don't, sir," said Dick awkwardly, but with a sincerity that surprised himself.

He was relieved when his visitor had gone. He was glad to know Wilson was satisfied, but that kind of thing rather took it out of one, when one had been in bed a bit; and on the whole, he got more pleasure out of Alan's visits.

Alan was the fourth of those who came up to the sick-room daily, and he stayed the longest.

To Dick, for whom friendship meant so much, by whom it had been missed so bitterly in Willie's, these peaceful talks almost made up for the whole pain and tedium of his convalescence. In them everything was finally explained and Alan, understanding at last his friend's curious aloofness, made another rather awkward scene, during which he persisted in reviling himself as a cad and rotter, not to have stuck to poor old Dick throughout in spite of everything.

However, that was over soon; the past set right, and then they could talk comfortably about the future. Dick would not get down, so the doctor said, until the week before the holidays, and even then would not be able to do anything but sit about; but at the end of term, it was arranged, he should go off with Alan, whose home was up in Scarborough, and convalesce in an accepted manner by the sea.

"And next term," went on Alan, who saw that all these plans gave a fresh life to the bored invalid, "next term, you won't have to worry about how much you come to the School House."

"Shan't I?" laughed Dick, not quite seeing why.

"Of course you won't! For one thing, Willie's by then will run itself--every one says it's going better now, without you!" (Whereat the pale and convalescent hurled a book at him with some precision and no little force.) "Besides, now that--now it's different about money, Willie's got no claim on you, and you've got just as much right to come along to other Houses as any other Monitor, you see. And Phelps and every one'll come and wake old Willie's up, as well: Willie's is one of THE Houses now, isn't it? Oh yes, next term'll be different," went on this most successful cheerer-up, "and in the summer we'll make another four, Phelps, and you, and I, and some one else, and see if we can't shoot those rapids up by Purlington this time!"

"That'll be ripping, and I bet we can," said Dick, with eager happiness. The old times seemed to have come once again, and they meant more--he had learnt to appreciate and to enjoy them.

When, too, at length he did get down into the studies, he found everything "different," even this term and here.

Nobody said anything, and this was a relief: but the old sulky air of keenness under protest had quite vanished. Dick was no more a taskmaster: he was a hero, and every one was keen to serve him. When he got up a House Run, even, on a horribly wet day, one might have thought that he had granted the House some inestimable boon, whilst he was touched to find that A's gymnastics had solemnly been carried through, even in its "sergeant's" absence! And Best, powerless to strike out alone against this flood of new enthusiasm--possibly, even, thinking a voluntary keenness more fitting to his great, "manly" dignity than a sullen obedience--astounded everybody by appearing for a shooting-at-goal practice, for which his name had not been put up on the notice-board.

This is how these things happened, five short years ago; and they have been here set down lest Wilson's, now that its Hall boasts far more challenge cups than any other House, should be forgetful of its origins.