who would care to face a stream of snowballs driven by the
vigorous hands of the Pennies down this passage as through a pipe.
Instead of meeting our enemies on the street, we had been penned up
within our own school. McIntyre's had come down the terrace and seized
an excellent position behind two Russian guns which stood opposite our
school and about twenty feet from our front entrance. They had made
these guns into a kind of fort, from behind whose shelter, reinforced by
a slight barricade of jackets, they commanded our entrance, and had
driven in the first boys who emerged, in hopeless discomfiture. It came
upon us that we had been shut up back and front, and shut up with the
poorest supply of snowballs and very little snow with which to repair
our resources.

[Illustration: "SEIZED AN EXCELLENT POSITION BEHIND TWO RUSSIAN GUNS."]

While the younger boys raged and stormed in the safety of the corridors,
Dunc and Speug retired for consultation. In two minutes they came out
and gave their orders to the mass of boys gathered together round the
"well" and in the "well," and on the stairs and along the corridors. It
was at this moment that Nestie Molyneux obtained a name which he covered
with glory before the close of the day. As he had no class between
twelve and one, he had been observing events, and with the aid of two or
three other little boys had done what he could to repair the neglect of
yesterday. In spite of a rain of snowballs he had availed himself of a
sheltered corner in the playground and had worked without ceasing at the
preparation of the balls. Every ball as it was made was dipped into a
pail of water and then, half frozen, was laid in a corner where it was
soon frozen altogether. "There'll be the feck o' two hundred balls
ready. Ma certes! Nestie has a head on his shoulders. Now," said Speug,
speaking from halfway up the stair, "we'll start with thae balls for a
beginnin', and wi' them we'll fecht our way out to the open. As soon as
we've cleared the background every ane o' the two junior classes is to
mak' balls as hard as he can lick and bring them forward to the fighting
line.

"We'll divide the senior school into three divisions; Dunc will take
thirty of ye and drive McIntyre frae the guns and along the terrace till
ye turn them into Breadalbane Street. Thirty o' ye--and I want nae
Dowbiggins--'ll come with me, and we'll bring the Pennies aff the shed
quicker than they got up, and drive them up th