rest of the school do not require a
great deal of encouragement to go on prodding that weak spot. In short,
the school rotted Seymour's about Sheen, and Seymour's raged
impotently. Fags of other houses expended much crude satire on
Seymour's fags, and even the seniors of the house came in for their
share of the baiting. Most of the houses at Wrykyn were jealous of
Seymour's, and this struck them as an admirable opportunity of getting
something of their own back.

One afternoon, not long after Sheen's conversation with Linton,
Stanning came into Seymour's senior day-room and sat down on the table.
The senior day-room objected to members of other houses coming and
sitting on their table as if they had bought that rickety piece of
furniture; but Stanning's reputation as a bruiser kept their resentment
within bounds.

"Hullo, you chaps," said Stanning.

The members of the senior day-room made no reply, but continued, as Mr
Kipling has it, to persecute their vocations. Most of them were
brewing. They went on brewing with the earnest concentration of
_chefs_.

"You're a cheery lot," said Stanning. "But I don't wonder you've got
the hump. I should be a bit sick if we'd got a skunk like that in our
house. Heard the latest?"

Some lunatic said, "No. What?" thereby delivering the day-room bound
into the hands of the enemy.

"Sheen's apologised to Attell."

There was a sensation in the senior day-room, as Stanning had expected.
He knew his men. He was perfectly aware that any story which centred
round Sheen's cowardice would be believed by them, so he had not
troubled to invent a lie which it would be difficult to disprove. He
knew that in the present state of feeling in the house Sheen would not
be given a hearing.

"No!" shouted the senior day-room.

This was the last straw. The fellow seemed to go out of his way to
lower the prestige of the house.

"Fact," said Stanning. "I thought you knew."

He continued to sit on the table, swinging his legs, while the full
horror of his story sunk into the senior day-room mind.

"I wonder you don't do something about it. Why don't you touch him up?
He's not a prefect."

But they were not prepared to go to that length. The senior day-room
had a great respect both for Drummond's word and his skill with his
hands. He had said he would slay any one who touched Sheen, and they
were of opinion that he would do it.

"He isn't in," said one of the brewers, looking up from his
t