in just at the convenient
time. I wonder why everything connected with fighting is so
interesting! Little children love playing at soldiers best of all
games, and delight in destroying whole tin armies with pea-shooting
artillery. With what silent eagerness the newspapers are devoured in
war-time when the details of a battle appear! If two cocks in a farm-
yard get at one another the heaviest bumpkin from the plough-tail, who
seems incapable of an emotion, grows animated. I suppose it is because
of the animal nature of which we partake which frequently excites us to
prey on other animals and quarrel with one another. Fights were very
rare at Weston, but they took place occasionally, and there was even a
traditional spot called the Fairies' Dell, or more commonly The Dell,
where they were brought off. But for a boy of the standing and position
of Crawley,--in the highest form, captain of the eleven, secretary and
treasurer of the cricket and football clubs--to be engaged in such an
affair was unprecedented, and the interest taken in it was so great as
to set the whole school in a ferment. The dislike borne by Saurin to
the other was well known, as also that he had attributed his expulsion
from the eleven to him, though unjustly, since public opinion had been
well nigh unanimous on the point. As for the chances of the combatants,
only the small clique who frequented Slam's, most of whom had seen him
sparring with the gloves, favoured that of Saurin. The general idea was
that the latter was mad to try conclusions with one so superior to him
in every way, and that Crawley would lick him into fits in about ten
minutes. As for the champions themselves, they awaited the ordeal in
very different frames of mind. To Crawley the whole thing was an
unmitigated bore. It would get him into some trouble with the
authorities probably; it was inconsistent with his position in the
school, and was setting a bad example; then he could hardly expect to
avoid a black eye, and it was only three weeks to the holidays, by which
time his bruises would hardly have time to disappear. His family were
staying for the summer at Scarborough, and his sisters wrote him
enthusiastic accounts of the lawn-tennis parties there. How could he
present himself in decent society, with one of his eyes in mourning?
But he saw something comic in his own annoyance, and it did not affect
him sufficiently to interfere with his studies or amusements. He