"You've been out to parties, or
somewhere, and seen some horrid girl ... you like ... better than me!"

"This is absurd, you know," said Mr. Bultitude. "You can't think how
absurd it is! Now, you'll be a very foolish little girl if you cry.
You're making a mistake. I'm not the Dick you used to know!"

"I know you're not!" sobbed Dulcie. "But oh, Dick, you will be. Promise
me you will be!" And, to Paul's horror and alarm, she put her arms round
his neck, and cried piteously on his shoulder.

"Good gracious!" he cried, "let me go. Don't do that, for Heaven's sake!
I can hear some one coming. If it's your father, it will ruin me!"

But it was too late. Over her head he saw Tipping enter the room, and
stand glaring at them menacingly. Dulcie saw him too, and sprang away to
the window, where she tried to dry her eyes unperceived, and then ran
past him with a hurried good morning, and escaped, leaving Paul alone
with the formidable Tipping.

There was an awkward silence at first, which Tipping broke by saying,
"What have you been saying to make her cry, eh?"

"What's that to you, sir?" said Paul, trying to keep his voice firm.

"Why, it's just this to me," said Tipping, "that I've been spoons on
Dulcie myself ever since I came, and she never would have a word to say
to me. I never could think why, and now it turns out to be you! What do
you mean by cutting me out like this? I heard her call you 'dear Dick.'"

"Don't be an ass, sir!" said Paul angrily.

"Now, none of your cheek, you know!" said Tipping, edging up against him
with a dangerous inclination first to jostle aggressively, and then maul
his unconscious rival. "You just mind what I say. I'm not going to have
Dulcie bothered by a young beggar in the second form; she deserves
something better than that, anyway, and I tell you that if I once catch
you talking to her in the way you did just now, or if I hear of her
favouring you more than any other fellows, I'll give you the very
juiciest licking you ever had in your life. So look out!"

At this point the other boys began to straggle down and cluster round
the fire, and Paul withdrew from the aggrieved Tipping, and looked
drearily out of the window on the hard road and bare black trees
outside.

"I _must_ tell the Doctor how I'm situated!" he thought; "and yet
directly I open my mouth, he threatens to flog me. If I stay here, that
little girl will be always trying to speak to me, and I shall be
thrashed by th