, when the boys had been very friendly with me, and were
going to have me in the paper chase on Saturday, he came up in the old
way and began asking me about my father, quite gravely, like a sort of
poor imitation of Weston. So I turned round and said, "Whatever my
father was--he's dead. Your father's alive, Johnson, and if you
weren't a coward, you wouldn't go on bullying a fellow who hasn't got
one."

"I'm a coward, am I, Master Honourable?" said Johnson, turning
scarlet, and at the word _Honourable_ I thought he had broken my nose.
I never felt such pain in my life, but it was the only pain I felt on
the occasion; afterwards I was much too much excited, I am sorry that
I cannot remember very clearly about it, which I should have liked to
do, as it was my first fight.

There was no time to fight properly. I was obliged to do the best I
could. I made a sort of rough plan in my head, that I would cling to
Johnson as long as I was able, and hit him whenever I got a chance. I
did not quite know when he was hitting me from when I was hitting him;
but I know that I held on, and that the ground seemed to be always
hitting us both.

How long we had been struggling and cuffing and hitting (less
scientifically but more effectually than when Henrietta and I
flourished our stuffed driving gloves, with strict and constant
reference to the woodcuts in a sixpenny Boxer's Guide) before I got
slightly stunned, I do not know; when I came round I was lying in
Weston's arms, and Johnson Minor was weeping bitterly (as he believed)
over my corpse. I fear Weston had not allayed his remorse.

My great anxiety was to shake hands with Johnson. I never felt more
friendly towards any one.

He met me in the handsomest way. He apologized for speaking of my
father--"since you don't like it," he added, with an appearance of
sincerity which puzzled me at the time, and which I did not understand
till afterwards--and I apologized for calling him a coward. We were
always good friends, and our fight made an end of the particular chaff
which had caused it.

It reconciled Rupert to me too, which was my greatest gain.

Rupert is quite right. There is nothing like being prepared for
emergencies. I suppose, as I was stunned, that Johnson got the best of
it; but judging from his appearance as we washed ourselves at the
school pump, I was now quite prepared for the emergency of having to
defend myself against any boy not twice my own size.

CHA