Alliance was decidedly in evidence and won fresh
laurels, yet there are other reasons which make an account of it
necessary, as the reader will discover in following the course of
subsequent events. If Jack Vance had kicked the ball a yard over the
bar instead of under it, the probability is that the following chapter
would never have been written; while the public disgrace of young Noaks
was destined to cause our three comrades more trouble than they ever
expected to encounter, at all events on this side of their leaving
school.

If the result of the match made such a great impression on the minds of
the victors, it is only natural that it should have had a similar effect
on the hearts of their opponents. Most of the Philistines would have
been content to take their defeat as a sportsman should, but neither
Noaks nor his two cronies, Hogson and Bernard, had any of this manly
spirit about them; and smarting under the disappointment of not having
won, and the knowledge that at least one of them had reaped shame and
contempt instead of glory, they determined to seek a speedy revenge.
As the three biggest boys in the school, they had little difficulty in
inducing their companions to join in the crusade which they preached
against The Birches, and the consequence was that the two schools were
soon exchanging open hostilities with greater vigour than ever.

Now, although the Birchites had proved themselves equal to their
opponents at football, they would have stood no chance against them in
anything like a personal encounter. The other party were, of course,
perfectly well aware of this fact, and waxed bold in consequence.
Again and again, when Mr. Welsby's pupils were at football practice, and
Mr. Blake happened not to be present, the enemy's sharp-shooter crept
into ambush behind the hedge and discharged stones from their catapults
at the legs of the players, while the latter replied by inquiring when
they meant to "come over and take another licking." At other times
these Horace House Cossacks swooped down on single members of the rival
establishment, harrying them in the very streets of Chatford, and on one
occasion had the audacity to lay violent hands on Jacobs, beat his
bowler hat down over his eyes, and push him through the folding doors of
a drapery establishment, where he upset an umbrella-stand and three
chairs, had his ears boxed by the shop-walker, and was threatened with
the police court if ever he did suc