it all happened."

"Well, I was chaffing a new boy, and the new boy happened to be
Moncrief's cousin. It upset Moncrief, and I ought to have left off; but
I didn't. I kept it up, and that's how it was Moncrief came to strike
me."

"Well, it's very honourable of you to own up to it. If every boy in the
school was as honest as you, Newall, we should soon find out who was the
culprit who went to my desk. Moncrief was guilty of a Quixotic act of
disobedience, as it turns out, and I think, in the circumstances he has
been sufficiently punished. It is due to you that he is released."

Newall was quite the hero of the school that morning. He had done a
manly thing in speaking up for Moncrief. That was the general opinion.
Paul thought the same. He had scarcely expected Newall would act up to
the promise that he had given him, but he had carried it out to the
letter. He had, somehow, never liked him, but he couldn't be such a bad
sort of fellow, after all.

"I must try to get over my prejudice against him," he thought.

So Stanley came back to his form, looking none the worse for the night
he had spent in Dormitory X.

It was not, however, till he and Paul were in the grounds that they had
the chance of speaking together.

"I thought Weevil meant keeping me in that wretched dormitory another
day and night," Stanley said, as Paul cordially greeted him. "How did he
come to let me out, I wonder?"

"Guess."

"Have you been speaking up for me?"

"No; Mr. Weevil wouldn't listen to me yesterday, and he wouldn't have
listened this morning. Guess again."

"My young cousin, I suppose," answered Stanley, after a moment's
reflection. "Has he been crying to Weevil?"

"Wrong again."

"Oh, bother! I give it up, then! Who was it?"

"You would never guess. Newall!"

"What?" Stanley stared at Paul incredulously.

"Fact--Newall. And he did it very well, too. He owned up frankly before
the masters and all the school that it was he who commenced the
quarrel."

"Why, I thought he told you that he wouldn't speak?"

"So he did; but he has altered his mind, you see. He told me he was
going to speak, but I couldn't believe my ears till I actually heard
him. A night's reflection has done him good, though he hadn't the
benefit of a change of air in Dormitory X. It's really very decent of
him, and I rather fancy if I were in your place----"

He paused, as though reflecting on what he should do if he were in
Stanley's place.

"We