rs. So he hunted up Baldry, and informed him of Plunger's kind
intentions towards him.

"Oh," said Baldry, when Harry had ended, "that's Plunger's little game,
is it? I thought he was getting a bit cross, but I didn't think he
meant showing his teeth. The beauty of it is, I hadn't anything to do
with that portrait of him on the Forum window. I know no more about it
than you do."

"Than I do!" echoed Harry, smiling to himself.

"He made a better guess when he told you that I inspired those
paragraphs in the _Record_. I just gave a hint to Jowett. Jowett passed
it on to Jessel, and Jessel put in the smart bits that touched Plunger
on the raw. Plunger's all right when he's going for other people, but he
doesn't like it when others go for him."

Harry quite sympathized with this view of things.

"There's my name," went on Baldry. "I can't help my name. I didn't
christen myself, and was never asked whether I liked it or not. That's
the worst of names. You never are consulted. It's all done for you by
your ancestors, and your godfathers and godmothers--and people of that
sort. I don't know why it should be, but it is; and there you are--fixed
up for life with a name, unless you happen to be a girl, and get
married, then you drop it for another, but it may be ever so much worse
than the one you've got. Now, what I say is this--Baldry isn't such a
bad name, as names go, is it, Moncrief?"

"Better than Plunger, any day," remarked Harry, in his most sympathetic
manner.

"Better than Plunger, as you say, Moncrief. Where Plunger's ancestors
picked up a name like that, goodness only knows. It must have come out
of the Ark. And yet he's always calling me 'Baldhead,' 'Bladder of
Lard,' 'The Lost Hair,' and telling me to go in for hair-restorer,
Tatcho, and making feeble jokes of that sort. But I think I went one
better when I got that paragraph in the _Record_, eh?"

"Yes, Baldry you scored there; but what we've got to think about is, how
to prevent Plunger from scoring back. Some one will have to go to the
Forum in answer to his invitation, when it comes. It won't matter who,
because Plunger won't be able to see; he'll be up in the tree, waiting
for my whistle. So who's to be the victim?"

Baldry became thoughtful. He ran through the list of his acquaintances
whom he thought most deserving of the honour that Plunger proposed to
bestow on him. He thought of one or two in his form who might have been
available for his purpos