e whole. The chances are that he'll remember your
name, and send for you again if you don't go; and then you'll be
worse off."

"You don't think he'll rusticate us, or anything of that sort?"
said Tom, who had felt horrible twinges at the Captain's picture
of the effects of rustication on ordinary mortals.

"No; not unless he's in a very bad humour. I was caught three
times in one night in my freshman's term, and only got an
imposition."

"Then I don't care," said Tom. "But it's a bore to have been
caught in so seedy an affair; if it had been a real good row, one
wouldn't have minded so much."

"Why, what did you expect? It was neither better nor worse than
the common run of such things."

"Well, but three parts of the crowd were boys."

"So they are always--or nine times out of ten at any rate."

"But there was no real fighting; at least, I only know I got
none."

"There isn't any real fighting, as you call it, nine times out of
ten."

"What is there, then?"

"Why, something of this sort. Five shopboys, or scouts' boys,
full of sauciness, loitering at an out-of-the-way street corner.
Enter two freshmen, full of dignity and bad wine. Explosion of
inflammable material. Freshmen mobbed into High-street or
Broad-street, where the tables are turned by a gathering of many
more freshmen, and the mob of town boys quietly subsides, puts
its hands in its pockets, and ceases to shout 'Town, town!' The
triumphant freshmen march up and down for perhaps half an hour,
shouting 'Gown, gown!' and looking furious, but not half sorry
that the mob vanishes like mist at their approach. Then come the
proctors, who hunt down, and break up the gown in some half-hour
or hour. The 'town' again marches about in the ascendant, and
mobs the scattered freshmen, wherever they can be caught in very
small numbers."

"But with all your chaff about freshmen, Captain, you were in it
yourself to-night; come now."

"Of course, I had to look after you two boys."

"But you didn't know we were in when you came up?"

"I was sure to find some of you. Besides, I'll admit one don't
like to go in while there's any chance of a real row as you call
it, and so gets proctorized in one's old age for one's
patriotism."

"Were you ever in a real row?" said Tom.

"Yes, once, about a year ago. The fighting numbers were about
equal, and the town all grown men, labourers and mechanics. It
was desperate hard work, none of your shouting and promenading