. He was the man who arranged prefects' meetings. And only a
prefects' meeting, thought Firby-Smith, could adequately avenge his
lacerated dignity.

"I want to speak to you, Burgess," he said.

"What's up?" said Burgess.

"You know young Jackson in our house."

"What about him?"

"He's been frightfully insolent."

"Cheeked you?" said Burgess, a man of simple speech.

"I want you to call a prefects' meeting, and lick him."

Burgess looked incredulous.

"Rather a large order, a prefects' meeting," he said. "It has to be a
pretty serious sort of thing for that."

"Frightful cheek to a school prefect is a serious thing," said
Firby-Smith, with the air of one uttering an epigram.

"Well, I suppose--What did he say to you?"

Firby-Smith related the painful details.

Burgess started to laugh, but turned the laugh into a cough.

"Yes," he said meditatively. "Rather thick. Still, I mean--A prefects'
meeting. Rather like crushing a thingummy with a what-d'you-call-it.
Besides, he's a decent kid."

"He's frightfully conceited."

"Oh, well--Well, anyhow, look here, I'll think it over, and let you
know to-morrow. It's not the sort of thing to rush through without
thinking about it."

And the matter was left temporarily at that.

CHAPTER XV

MIKE CREATES A VACANCY

Burgess walked off the ground feeling that fate was not using him
well.

Here was he, a well-meaning youth who wanted to be on good terms with
all the world, being jockeyed into slaughtering a kid whose batting he
admired and whom personally he liked. And the worst of it was that he
sympathised with Mike. He knew what it felt like to be run out just
when one had got set, and he knew exactly how maddening the Gazeka's
manner would be on such an occasion. On the other hand, officially he
was bound to support the head of Wain's. Prefects must stand together
or chaos will come.

He thought he would talk it over with somebody. Bob occurred to him.
It was only fair that Bob should be told, as the nearest of kin.

And here was another grievance against fate. Bob was a person he did
not particularly wish to see just then. For that morning he had posted
up the list of the team to play for the school against Geddington, one
of the four schools which Wrykyn met at cricket; and Bob's name did
not appear on that list. Several things had contributed to that
melancholy omission. In the first place, Geddington, to judge from the
weekly reports in th