vors and not merely
individuals. On occasions when boys in his own house and boys from other
houses were accomplices and partners in wrongdoing, Mr. Downing
distributed his thunderbolts unequally, and the school noticed it. The
result was that not only he himself, but also--which was rather
unfair--his house, too, had acquired a good deal of unpopularity.

The general consensus of opinion in Outwood's during the luncheon
interval was that having got Downing's up a tree, they would be fools
not to make the most of the situation.

Barnes's remark that he supposed, unless anything happened and wickets
began to fall a bit faster, they had better think of declaring somewhere
about half past three or four, was met with a storm of opposition.

"Declare!" said Robinson. "Great Scot, what on earth are you talking
about?"

"Declare!" Stone's voice was almost a wail of indignation. "I never saw
such a chump."

"They'll be rather sick if we don't, won't they?" suggested Barnes.

"Sick! I should think they would," said Stone. "That's just the gay
idea. Can't you see that by a miracle we've got a chance of getting a
jolly good bit of our own back against those Downing's ticks? What we've
got to do is to jolly well keep them in the field all day if we can, and
be jolly glad it's so beastly hot. If they lose about a dozen pounds
each through sweating about in the sun after Jackson's drives, perhaps
they'll stick on less side about things in general in future. Besides, I
want an innings against that bilge of old Downing's, if I can get it."

"So do I," said Robinson.

"If you declare, I swear I won't field. Nor will Robinson."

"Rather not."

"Well, I won't then," said Barnes unhappily. "Only you know they're
rather sick already."

"Don't you worry about that," said Stone with a wide grin. "They'll be a
lot sicker before we've finished."

And so it came about that that particular Mid-Term Service-Day match
made history. Big scores had often been put up on Mid-Term Service Day.
Games had frequently been one-sided. But it had never happened before in
the annals of the school that one side, going in first early in the
morning, had neither completed its innings nor declared it closed when
stumps were drawn at 6.30. In no previous Sedleigh match, after a full
day's play, had the pathetic words "Did not bat" been written against
the whole of one of the contending teams.

These are the things which mark epochs.

Play was resu