is friends to tell tales,
and trump up stories about me? Suppose I told you he and his fellow-
monitors resorted to a mean dodge to get me to resign my monitorship,
and then got up this precious Club in order to soft-soap their own
toadies for helping them to do it? What has Mansfield done for
Templeton, I should like to know? Hasn't he done more harm than good by
his hectoring manner and his favouritism and fussiness? Isn't he one of
the most unpopular fellows in Templeton? Didn't he all but get
ignominiously left out of his own wonderful Club? And what do you think
of him when he gets up here and tries to pass as a model of justice,
when as likely as not, he has pre-arranged the whole affair, and told
every one what part he is to play in the farce?"

He sat down amid a dead silence, conscious he had overdone it. A little
less, and he might have convinced some that what he said was true; but
when he talked such palpable nonsense as that of the Captain having
arranged the whole scene which Pledge himself had got up, the meeting
took his whole tirade for what it was worth, and received it in mocking
silence.

Freckleton, to the relief of everybody, got up and said--

"I did think we might be spared quite such a ridiculous speech as that
to which we have just listened. However, I have nothing to say about
its comic side. What I want to say is this. It is perfectly true
Mansfield had a spite against Pledge. So had I; _so_ had Cresswell. So
had eleven out of twelve of all the other monitors. And I'll tell you
why. When a fellow deliberately sets himself to corrupt juniors
entrusted to his care, as he corrupted young Forbes (howls), when he
sets himself to upset every vestige of order and good form in Templeton;
when he tells lies of everybody, and never tells the same lie correctly
twice running (laughter); when he cudgels his brains how he may make
mischief between friends (cheers from the 'Firm'), and get the credit of
being the only friend of the very fellows he tries to ruin; then, I say,
it's no wonder if Mansfield, and you, and everybody has a spite against
him. I don't say much for the Templetonian that hasn't. I don't mean
the spite which would lead any one to kick him. Thank goodness, we can
let him know what we think without wearing out our shoe-leather
(laughter). He talks in noble strain about being single-handed, and on
the losing side. Thank goodness he is single-handed, and on the losing