y for one day in the week--and the two chairs below me were
again vacant.

I helped myself to a slice from the uninviting joint, and then artlessly
pushed the dish along one place, opposite the first of the empty chairs,
and proceeded to regale myself.

It was interesting to see the perplexity which my simple manoeuvre
caused. The next fellow below me, out of reach three chairs away, had
nothing for it but either to speak to me, which I calculated his vows
would not allow him to do, or else ignominiously to walk up to the seat
next mine and possess himself of the dish. He did the latter, and I
scored one--the only "one" I scored for some time to come.

For Draven's, seeing I was defiant, felt hurt in its pride, and drew the
blockade closer around me. It had expected at least that I should make
some effort to win my way back into popularity, and it did not at all
like, when it chose to boycott me, that I should boycott it. So
gradually we forgot what the quarrel was about, and set ourselves to see
who could hold out longest.

A manly, sensible, Christian occupation for fifty fellow-creatures
during a dull winter month!

I never got the gymnasium to myself now, for whenever I went it was
always full, and remained full till I was tired of waiting for a vacant
bar or swing. As for football, hockey, paper-chasing, and the other
school sports, I was, of course, excluded both by my own pride and the
action of the school.

In fact, Draven's never pulled together so well at anything as they did
at boycotting me during those few weeks. Their discipline was splendid.
They all seemed to know exactly what to do and what not to do when I
appeared on the scene, and any hopes I had of winning over a few
stragglers to my side vanished before the blockade had lasted a week.

At first I didn't mind it. My mettle was up, I was excited, and the
consciousness that I was unjustly treated carried me through.

But in a few days the novelty began to wear off, and I began to get
tired of my own company. I still made the most of my elbow-room in
class and at meals, but it ceased to be amusing.

I tried to work hard in my study every evening, and to persuade myself I
was glad of the opportunity of making up for lost time; but somehow or
other the distant sounds of revelry and laughter made Livy and Euclid
more dull and uninteresting than ever. I tried to hug myself with the
notion of how independent I was in school and out, how f