"I mean, can I box?"

Mr Spence's look of surprise became more marked.

"Box?" he said. "But surely--I didn't know you were a boxer, Sheen."

"I've only taken it up lately."

"But you didn't enter for the House Competitions, did you? What weight
are you?"

"Just under ten stone."

"A light-weight. Why, Linton boxed for your house in the Light-Weights
surely?"

"Yes sir. They wouldn't let me go in."

"You hurt yourself?"

"No, sir."

"Then why wouldn't they let you go in?"

"Drummond thought Linton was better. He didn't know I boxed."

"But--this is very curious. I don't understand it at all. You see, if
you were not up to House form, you would hardly--At Aldershot, you see,
you would meet the best boxers of all the public schools."

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause.

"It was like this, sir," said Sheen nervously. "At the beginning of the
term there was a bit of a row down in the town, and I got mixed up in
it. And I didn't--I was afraid to join in. I funked it."

Mr Spence nodded. He was deeply interested now. The office of confessor
is always interesting.

"Go on, Sheen. What happened then?"

"I was cut by everybody. The fellows thought I had let the house down,
and it got about, and the other houses scored off them, so I had rather
a rotten time."

Here it occurred to him that he was telling his story without that
attention to polite phraseology which a master expects from a boy, so
he amended the last sentence.

"I didn't have a very pleasant time, sir," was his correction.

"Well?" said Mr Spence.

"So I was a bit sick," continued Sheen, relapsing once more into the
vernacular, "and I wanted to do something to put things right again,
and I met--anyhow, I took up boxing. I wanted to box for the house, if
I was good enough. I practised every day, and stuck to it, and after a
bit I did become pretty good."

"Well?"

"Then Drummond got mumps, and I wrote to him asking if I might
represent the house instead of him, and I suppose he didn't believe I
was any good. At any rate, he wouldn't let me go in. Then Joe--a man
who knows something about boxing--suggested I should go down to
Aldershot."

"Joe?" said Mr Spence inquiringly.

Sheen had let the name slip out unintentionally, but it was too late
now to recall it.

"Joe Bevan, sir," he said. "He used to be champion of England,
light-weight."

"Joe Bevan!" cried Mr Spence. "Really? Why, he trained me when I boxed
for Cambridge. He's