smiling,
though the odds against them are ten to one. O mother, if I could but go
to help them!"

Mrs. Holl herself was not without sharing his excitement. Several times
she made sorties from her doorstep, and seized more than one hulking
fellow in the act of pummelling a youngster half his size, and shook him
with a vigour which showed that constant exercise at the wash-tub had
strengthened her arms.

"Yer ought to be ashamed of yerselves, yer ought; a whole crowd of yer
pitching into a handful o' boys."

But her remonstrances were unheeded in the din,--which, however, was
raised entirely by the assailants, the boys fighting silently, save when
an occasional shout of "Hurrah, Westminster!" was raised. Presently Evan
dashed through the crowd up to the door.

"Are they coming, Evan?" the cripple asked eagerly.

"Yes, 'Arry; they will be 'ere in a jiffy."

A half-minute later, and with shouts of "Westminster! Westminster!" the
reinforcement came tearing up the street.

Their arrival in an instant changed the face of things. The "skies" for
a moment or two resisted; but the muscles of the eight--hardened by the
training which had lately given them victory over Eton in their annual
race--stood them in good stead, and the hard hitting of the "water" soon
beat back the lately triumphant assailants of "cricket." The united band
took the offensive, and in two or three minutes the "skies" were in full
flight.

"We were just in time, Norris," one of the new-comers said to the tall
lad in cricketing flannels whose straight hitting had particularly
attracted the admiration of Harry Holl.

"Only just," the other said, smiling; "it was a hot thing, and a pretty
sight we shall look up School to-morrow. I shall have two thundering
black eyes, and my mouth won't look pretty for a fortnight; and, by the
look of them, most of the others have fared worse. It's the biggest
fight we have had for years. But I don't think the 'skies' will
interfere with us again for some time, for every mark we've got they've
got ten. Won't there be a row in School to-morrow when Litter sees that
half the Sixth can't see out of their eyes."

Not for many years had the lessons at Westminster been so badly prepared
as they were upon the following morning--indeed, with the exception of
the half and home-boarders, few of whom had shared in the fight, not a
single boy, from the Under School to the Sixth, had done an exercise or
prepared a lesson. Stud