pon to exert himself beyond a little
bullying, 'you hear, little Morrison, just you do as you're told!' he
commanded.

'This is what I want him to do,' explained Taylor. 'I have heard that
it is all through his father that we have got the beggar here, and so
it's Mr. Morrison and that precious Council that must move him.'

'Of course,' assented Curtis. 'You hear, Morrison?'

'I tell you it must be some of the other fellows that must go and
explain to the pater that the school don't like scholarship boys. You
don't know my pater,' he went on, a little plaintively. 'He would very
likely report us to the head master for sending the fellow to
Coventry, and then where should we be?'

'Where we are now, but that fellow wouldn't.'

'I tell you, Curtis, you don't know the pater. He would ask what he
had done that the school had sent him to Coventry, and you know well
enough that we haven't acted on the square with him.'

'Oh, that's it, is it? You are going to take his part now, and peach
on us!' raved Taylor.

Curtis yawned. 'You'd better give in, and do as Taylor orders you.'

'Well, then, I should peach, and no mistake, if I told my father we
had sent the fellow to Coventry for the last month. "What for?" he
would say in his quiet way, while he looked into your very soul, so
that you knew you must make a clean breast of everything. No, thank
you. I don't mind going with you and Taylor and two or three other
fellows as a sort of deputation from----'

'Deputation be bothered!' interrupted Taylor viciously. 'Why should we
go cap in hand to ask your father to take the fellow away? It ought to
be enough for you to tell him that the school don't like it, and that
we are determined to uphold the honour of Torrington's.'

'Yes, that's it. We don't mean to let the school go to the dogs to
please anybody,' said Curtis lazily.

'Yes; and what are we to do next, for the beggar don't seem to care
now whether we send him to Coventry or not, and Skeats is giving the
game away by letting him go to the chemistry "lab." every dinner
hour.'

'Let's send Skeats to Coventry,' said Curtis.

Leonard laughed at the suggestion, but Taylor grew more angry.

'It's no good fooling over this now,' he said. 'I have been talking to
some of the fellows in the sixth, and they have made up their minds
not to have the beggar among them.'

'All right, let them get rid of him, then,' said Curtis. 'I don't see
why we should do their dirty work