nd drinking,
though periodically the room went spinning round him.

Tea over, he staggered into the Preparation room and sat at his desk
with his brows on his hand and his eyes on his book. The print
danced before his gaze: letter rushed into letter, word merged
mistily into word, line into line, till all was a grey blur. A blink
of the eyes--an effort of the will--a sort of "squad, shun!" to the
type before him--and the words jumped back into their places,
letters separated from their entanglement and stood like soldiers at
spruce attention. A relaxing of the effort--and dismiss!
helter-skelter, pell-mell went letter, word, and line. It was all a
blur again. Once more he made the necessary exercise of his will and
was able to read a line or two; but, if the mistiness were not to
come before his eyes, the effort had to be sustained, and that made
his head feel very heavy. It proved too much for him; the will to do
it expired, and away went the letters into the fog. Some boys
whispered that he was sighing for his friend Ray; others teased him
by muttering: "Diddums get whacked by the prefects? Diddums get a
leathering?"

Poor Doe! He must have been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't
whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when
he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men.
But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he
should gratify his desire for glory, or by a martyr's silence he
should give himself the satisfaction of playing a fine hero. The
latter was the stronger motive. He kept silence, and only hoped that
his valorous deeds would leak out.

Preparation was nearly over when there came one of those
heart-stopping crashes which all who hear know to be the total
collapse of a human being. A faint--aye, and a faint in the first
degree, when life goes out like a candle.

"Who's that? What's that?" cried the master-in-charge, quickly
rising.

"It's Doe, sir. He's fainted."

"Oh, ah, I see," said he, leaving his desk and hastening to the
spot. "Sit down, all of you. There's nothing very extraordinary in a
boy fainting. Here, Stanley, pick him up and take him to the
sick-room; and, Bickerton, go with him. The rest of you get on with
your work."

Thereafter Pennybet--or, at least, so he assured us--expended his
spare time in knocking his head against walls and holding his breath
in the hope that he, too, might faint and have a restful holiday in