he football house-matches, Scaife got his "fez"
from Lawrence, the captain of the House Eleven, and the only member of
the School Eleven in Dirty Dick's. Some of the big fellows in the
Fifth seized this opportunity to "celebrate," as they called it.
Scaife was popular with the Fifth because--as John discovered later--he
cheerfully lent money to some of them and never pressed for repayment.
And Scaife's getting his "fez" before he was fifteen might be reckoned
an achievement. Caesar, in particular, could talk of nothing else. He
predicted that the Demon would be Captain of both Elevens, school
racquet-player, and bloom into a second C. B. Fry.

John, upon this eventful evening, soon became aware of a shindy. It
happened that Rutford was giving a dinner-party, and extremely unlikely
to leave the private side of the house. John heard snatches of song,
howls, and cheers. Ordinarily Lawrence (in whose passage the shindy
was taking place) would have stopped this hullabaloo; but Lawrence was
dining with his house-master, and Trieve, an undersized, weakly
stripling, lacked the moral courage to interfere. John was getting a
"con" from Trieve when an unusually piercing howl penetrated the august
seclusion.

"What are they doing?" asked Trieve, irritably.

John hesitated. "It's the Fifth," he blurted out. "They've got Scaife
in there, you know."

"Oh, indeed! Scaife is an excuse, is he, for this fiendish row? Go
and tell Scaife I want to see him."

John looked rather frightened. He felt like a spaniel about to
retrieve a lion. And scurrying along the passage he ran headlong into
the Duffer, to whom he explained his errand.

"Phew-w-w!" said that young gentleman. "I'd sooner it was you than me,
Verney. They're pretty well ginned-up, I can tell you."

John tapped timidly at the door of the room whence the songs and
laughter proceeded. Then he tapped again, and again. Finally,
summoning his courage, he rapped hard. Instantly there was silence,
and then a furtive rustling of papers, followed by a constrained "Come
in!"

John entered.

Most of the boys--there were about six of them--gazed at him in
stupefaction. Scaife, very red in the face, burst into shrill shouts
of laughter. Somehow the laughter disconcerted John. He forgot to
deliver his message, but stood staring at Scaife, quaking with a young
boy's terror of the unknown. Upon the table were some siphons, syrups,
and the remains of a "spread."