was reading and looked
up.

'I won't be called that,' he said quietly.

'Who said you wouldn't?' said Smithson major, who, after all, was only
twelve. 'I say you will.'

'If you call me that I shall hit you,' said Quentin, 'as hard as I can.'

A roar of laughter went up, and cries of, 'Poor old
Smithson'--'Apologise, Smithie, and leave the omnibus.'

'And what should I be doing while you were hitting me?' asked Smithson
contemptuously.

[Illustration: It landed on the point of the chin of Smithson major.]

'I don't know and I don't care,' said Quentin.

Smithson looked round. No master was in sight. It seemed an excellent
opportunity to teach young de Ward his place.

'Atlantic pig-swine,' he said very deliberately. And Quentin sprang at
him, and instantly it was a fight.

Now Quentin had only once fought--really fought--before. Then it was
the grocer's boy and he had been beaten. But he had learned something
since. And the chief conclusion he now drew from his memories of that
fight was that he had not hit half hard enough, an opinion almost
universal among those who have fought and not won.

As the fist of Smithson major described a half circle and hurt his ear
very much, Quentin suddenly screwed himself up and hit out with his
right hand, straight, and with his whole weight behind the blow as the
grocer's boy had shown him. All his grief for his wounded father, his
sorrow at the parting from his mother, all his hatred of his school, and
his contempt for his schoolfellows went into that blow. It landed on the
point of the chin of Smithson major who fell together like a heap of
rags.

'Oh,' said Quentin, gazing with interest at his hand--it hurt a good
deal but he looked at it with respect--'I'm afraid I've hurt him.'

He had forgotten for a moment that he was in an enemies' country, and
so, apparently, had his enemies.

'Well done, Piggy! Bravo, young 'un! Well hit, by Jove!'

Friendly hands thumped him on the back. Smithson major was no popular
hero.

Quentin felt--as his schoolfellows would have put it--bucked. It is one
thing to be called Pig in enmity and derision. Another to be called
Piggy--an affectionate diminutive, after all--to the chorus of admiring
smacks.

'Get up, Smithie,' cried the ring. 'Want any more?'

It appeared that Smithie did not want any more. He lay, not moving at
all, and very white.

'I say,' the crowd's temper veered, 'you've killed him, I expect. I
wouldn't like