ws did."

"Kind of you. Has he apologised?"

"Oh, never mind," said Dick, forgivingly, "it doesn't matter."

"Tut! do you suppose he's got to apologise to you? I was there to see
fair play, and he's to do it to me."

At any other time Dick might have felt snubbed; but now he failed to see
the rebuke, and gave order grandly that Culver should be brought.

"There he is," said he, as the unhappy ex-president of the Den was
conducted into his presence.

"Culver," said Birket, "you are a cad; you hit below the belt."

"No, I didn't, it was an accident," pleaded the culprit. "Please,
Birket, I've been licked already."

"Stand up on that form, and tell all the fellows you apologise for doing
a cowardly action and disgracing Templeton."

Culver promptly obeyed, and repeated the apology word for word.

There were loud cries for Gosse at this point, and Birket yielded to the
popular demand, and ordered the ex-secretary to go through the same
ceremony. Which the ex-secretary cheerfully did.

"Now then," said the Fifth-form boy, turning again to Culver, "shake
hands with Richardson and make it up. You've been licked, so there's
nothing left to settle."

Culver may have secretly differed from Birket on this point, but he kept
his secret to himself and held out his hand. Dick took it, and gave it
an honest shake. It is one of the luxuries victors enjoy, to shake the
proffered hand of the vanquished, and Dick enjoyed it greatly.

"It's all made up now," said Birket, addressing the Den, "and there'd
better be no more row about it, or you'll have one of the Sixth down on
you, and he won't let you off as easy as I have, I can tell you."

But although the fight was over, and the breach of the peace was healed,
the consequences of the fray were of much longer duration.

Their effect on Dick was not, on the whole, beneficial to that doughty
young warrior. Prosperity went harder with him than adversity. As long
as he had his hill to climb, his foe to vanquish, his peril to brave,
Dick had the makings of a hero. But when fortune smoothed his path,
when the foe lay at his feet, when the peril had passed behind, then
Dick's troubles began. Popularity turned his head, and laid him open to
dangers twice as bad as those he had cleared. The more fellows cheered
him, the more he craved their cheers; the more he craved their cheers,
the more willing a slave he became.

"It strikes me, youngster," said Cresswell one day,