further visit to Webster; and then casually
waylaid his old fag as he was returning, decidedly depressed in mind,
from saying good-bye to Mr Richardson.

"Why, Georgie, old man," said Pledge, "how festive you look! The change
of air from my study to Swinstead's has done you good. Where have you
been all the morning?"

"I've just come up from the town," said Heathcote, wishing he could get
away.

"Ah, trying to square somebody up, eh? It's not quite as easy as one
might think; is it?"

Heathcote looked doubtfully up at his old senior's face, and said
nothing.

"It's a wonder to me, you know," said Pledge, turning his back and
looking out of the window, "that your new angelic friends don't somehow
do it for you. There's Mansfield, you know. One word from his lips
would do the business. Everyone knows he never did anything low."

"Mansfield never speaks to me," said Georgie, more for the sake of
saying something than because he considered the fact important.

"Really! How ungrateful of him, when you have been the means of
enabling him to kick me out of the Sixth. Very ungrateful!"

"I never had anything to do with that," said Georgie.

"No! You don't, then, believe a fellow can make use of you without your
knowing it. You can't imagine Mansfield saying to his dear friends,
'I'd give anything to get at that wicked Pledge, but I daren't do it
straight out. So I must pretend to be deeply interested in that little
prig, Heathcote, and much concerned lest he should be corrupted by his
wicked senior. That will be a fine excuse for having a slap at Pledge.
I'll take away his fag, and then, of course, he'll resign, and we shall
get rid of him!'"

"I don't believe he really said that," said Heathcote, colouring up.

"'And then,' he would say, 'to bribe the youngster over, and keep him
from spoiling all and going back to his old senior, we'll manage to fool
him about our precious new Club, and put his name on the list.'"

This was rousing Georgie on a tender point.

"If my name gets on the list, it will be because Dick and Coote and I
ran through the hunt; that's why!" he said, rather fiercely.

"Ha, ha! If they could only humbug everybody as easily as they do you.
So you are really going to get into the Club?"

"I'll try, if our names get on the list."

"And you think they are sure to elect you? Of course you've done
nothing to disgrace Templeton, eh?"

The boy's face fell, and Pledge followed up