if I could go down and fight the
Doctor."

"Do you?" I said dolefully. "I feel as if he is going to fight us."

"Not he; come on. You can't afford to be afraid of anything now."

"Hadn't I better stop?" I suggested, with another look in the glass.

"No; you must come. If you don't, the Doctor is sure to send for you,
and that will make it worse. I say!"

"Well?"

"People who fight used to take the spoils of the vanquished. I wish I
could have taken old Dicksee's four-bladed knife, with the lancet and
corkscrew to it, and you could have taken old Eely's watch."

"I don't want his watch," I said snappishly.

"I do, and I'd have changed with you. Come on."

We ran down-stairs, and, feeling very nervous, hurried to the
schoolroom, from whose open windows came the clatter of knives and
forks.

Fortunately for us, we had to enter at the opposite end to where the
Doctor would be seated, nominally taking his meal with us, and of course
the ushers knew that we must be late, so with heads bent down we hurried
in, conscious that every eye was upon us, and that the temporary
cessation of the rattle on the plates was due to the boys leaving off
eating to stare at our injuries.

I saw both Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip look up and frown as they caught
sight of my damaged face, and I was congratulating myself on escaping
the Doctor's eye, when he looked up, frowned, and went on with his
lunch.

"It's all right," whispered Mercer, scuffling into his place beside me,
the boys around, to my great surprise, seeming to look at my marks with
quite respectful eyes, and evidently as a conqueror's honours or
laurels, when there was a sharp tapping on the table from the Doctor's
knife-handle.

Profound silence ensued, Mercer just gripping my knee and whispering,--

"Oh, crikey!"

"Mr Rebble," said the doctor in deep tones.

"Sir?"

"To the commercial man punctuality is the soul of business; to the
gentleman it is the soul of honour; and to the scholastic pupil it is
the soul of er--er--the soul of er--er--er--duty. Be good enough to see
that Mercer and Burr junior have impositions. Er--rum! Er--rum!" The
Doctor finished by coughing in a peculiar way, and the clatter of knives
and forks began again.

"He don't know yet about the fights," I whispered; "and, I say, look!"

"What's the matter?"

"Eely hasn't come down yet."

"Fatty has. I say, just look at his eyes."

"Horrid!" I whispered. "He looks fatter t