omforts were purely local, and he did not feel ill at all; on the
contrary, he was remarkably hungry. Buller was with him when he washed
and changed his shirt, for he had been applying a cold key to the back
of his neck to stop the nose-bleeding, and now remained, like a
conscientious second, lest it should break out again.

"I say, Buller," said Crawley suddenly, "_you_ never go to Slam's, I
hope?"

"Not I."

"Then how do you know such a lot about prize-fighting?"

"I told Robarts; my elder brother is very fond of everything connected
with sparring, and has got a lot of reports of matches, and I have read
all the prize-fights that ever were, I think. I used to take great
interest in them, and thought I might remember something which would
come in useful. There is a great sameness in these things, you know,
and the principles are simple."

"I am sure I am much obliged to you for offering to be my second; I
should have been licked but for you."

"I don't know that. I think you would have thought of fighting at his
wind when you could not reach his face for yourself, and tired him out
anyhow. But if I have been useful I am glad. You took pains to try my
bowling when most fellows would have laughed at the idea; and there is
the honour of the house too. What I feared was that you would not
follow what I said, but persist in trying to bore in."

"Why," replied Crawley, laughing, "Saurin backed up your advice with
such very forcible and painful examples of the common sense of it, that
I should have been very pig-headed not to catch your meaning. But what
rot it all is!" he added, looking in the glass. "A pretty figure I
shall look at Scarborough, with my face all the colours of the prism,
like a disreputable damaged rainbow!"

"There are three weeks yet to the holidays; you will be getting all
right again by then," said Buller.

"I doubt it; it does not feel like it now, at all events," replied
Crawley; and when supper-time came he was still more sceptical of a very
speedy restoration to his ordinary comfortable condition. It was an
absurd plight to be in; he felt very hungry, and there was the food; the
difficulty was to eat it. It hurt his lips to put it in his mouth--salt
was out of the question--and it hurt his jaws to masticate it, and it
hurt his throat to swallow it. But he got it down somehow, and then
came prayers, conducted as usual every evening by Dr Jolliffe, who,
when the boys filed out af