presentable. I shudder at what
the Doctor would say if he saw you all in this condition. Come,
Hasnip."

They both descended like pantomime demons through the trap, and we
followed, Burr major going first, with his brow knit and his bruised
face looking sulky and sour, while Dicksee turned to give Tom Mercer a
savagely vindictive look which was not pleasant to see.

"Won't you shake hands?" I said, as my adversary was about to descend.

He gave me a quick look, but made no answer. Hodson however, spoke as
we reached the stable.

"Why, Burr," he said, "I didn't know that you could fight like that."

"No," I said, "and I did not know either."

Then we hurried in and ran up to our room, where I was glad to get soap
and towel to my bruised face.

"Oh, you are lucky, Tom!" I panted, as I hurriedly bent over the basin,
fully expecting to be reported for coming up to the dormitory out of
hours. "Why, you don't show a bit."

"Nor you neither," he replied.

"Oh!" I gasped, as I looked in the glass.

"Well, not so very much," he said.

"But--but I don't hardly know myself," I said despondently. "What a
face!"

"Well, it does look rather like a muffin," he cried.

"Ah, you may laugh," I said. "My eyes are just like they were when I
was stung by a bee, and my lip's cut inside, and this tooth is loose,
and--Oh dear, it's all growing worse!"

"Yes, it's sure to go on getting worse for a day or two, and then it
will begin to get better. Ready?"

"Ready! No," I cried, as I listened to his poor consolation. "I'm
getting horrid. I daren't go down."

"You must--you must. Come and face it out before you get worse."

"But I don't seem to have got a face," I cried, glaring out of two slits
at my reflection in the glass. "It's just as if some one had been
sitting on it for a week. Oh, you ugly brute!"

"So are you."

"I meant myself, of course, Tom."

"Never mind, never mind. Hooray! hooray!" he cried, dancing round the
room and snapping his fingers; "we've licked 'em--we've licked 'em! and
you're cock of the school. Hooray! hooray!"

"But I half wish I hadn't won now," I said.

"You will not to-morrow. Oh dear! poor old Eely! didn't he squirm! Oh,
I say! I wish I had given it to old Dicksee ten times as much."

I couldn't help laughing, but it hurt horribly, and I was serious again
directly.

"I say," I said painfully, "old Lom did teach us well!"

"Teach us! It was splendid. I feel as