m; and he felt a kind of proud superiority over his captors, which
placed him out of the reach of fear, and even out of the reach of
malice and revenge.

Richard was a courageous boy; he had been so in his foolish and vicious
enterprises; but he was doubly so now, when his soul was free from the
stain of transgression. He did not borrow any trouble about what his
persecutors intended to do, though he felt a very natural curiosity to
see the end of the adventure.

"Go on," replied Richard, calmly, as the spokesman of the party
announced their intentions.

"Shall we tell him what for? Shall we try him?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes; let us give him a drum-head court martial. The licking won't do
him any good if he don't know what it is for," replied Dobbin.

"Grant," said Kennedy, with the solemnity of a judge, "you have ruined
the best fellow in Company D."

"He ruined himself," replied Richard.

"No, he didn't. Of what you did in fair fight in the grove, we haven't
a word to say. But you have prejudiced the colonel against him, and
caused him to be deprived of his warrant, which will prevent him from
obtaining his commission at the next election. You set yourself up as a
leader among the fellows before you had been a week in the school. Have
you any thing to say?"

"Nothing, except that all your charges are false," answered Richard;
and if there had been light enough to see it, a smile would have been
discovered upon his countenance.

"In the interview with the principal, you pretended to be a saint, and
to be sorry for what you had done. You did not stand up like a man, and
take the consequences of your acts."

"Go on; I have nothing to say," added Richard, when the speaker paused.

"You are a dangerous fellow in the school. You intend to climb up
yourself by pushing others down. We won't submit to it."

"What are you going to do?" coolly asked the prisoner.

"We are going to thrash you, as you deserve."

"You are brave fellows!" sneered Richard. "What you are afraid to do in
the daylight, with fair play, you do by stealth and trickery in the
night. You are a set of cowards, and if you will untie my hands I will
whip the whole of you."

"That is very fine talk, Grant," said Kennedy, "but it don't amount to
any thing."

"No talk is necessary to prove your cowardly meanness. Go on, and do
your best. I am not afraid of the whole of you, even with my hands tied
behind me. I despise the whole of you."

"We wil