birds had flown, a titter had gone round at the
expense of Messrs. Clapperton, Dangle, and Brinkman, which had been
particularly riling to those gentlemen.

When in the morning the birds were found to have flown once more, the
position of the seniors became positively painful. Fullerton, as usual,
did not salve the wound.

"I should say--not that it matters much to me--that that scores another
to the rebels," said he. "How very naughty of them not to stay and be
whopped, to be sure!"

"The young cads!" growled Clapperton, who had the grace to be perfectly
aware that he had been made ridiculous. "I don't envy them when I get
hold of them."

"No more do I," said Fullerton, "with their door off its hinges. It
will be very draughty."

"Do shut up. Why don't you go and join the enemy at once, if you're so
fond of them?" said Dangle.

"Well," said Clapperton, "they will keep; but we must have it out with
Corder now. It's no use simply cutting him; he'll have to be taught
that he can't defy the house for nothing. Go and tell him to come,
Brinkman."

But Corder's back was against the wall, literally and metaphorically.

To Brinkman's demand (almost the first voice he had heard speaking to
him for a week) he returned a curt refusal.

"Well, I'll make you come," said Brinkman. Whereupon Corder retreated
behind his table and invited the interloper to begin.

To dodge round and round a study table after a nimble boy is not a very
dignified operation for a prefect, particularly when the object of his
chase is a prefect too; and Brinkman presently abandoned the quest and
went off, breathing threatenings and slaughter, for reinforcements.

So did Corder. Less sensitive than his junior fellow-martyrs, he
marched straight across to Yorke's study. The captain was away, but in
the adjoining room he found Fisher major and Denton, poring over their
endless accounts.

"You two," said Corder, "you're prefects. You're wanted over on the
other side to stop bullying."

"Who's being bullied?"

"I am. I've been cut dead for a week. I'm sick of it. Now they're
going to lick me. I'd take my chance against them one at a time, but I
can't tackle three of them."

"Is it for playing in the match?"

"Yes, that and going to the meeting. Nothing else. I'd go to twenty a
day, if I had the chance, to spite them."

"Who are bullying you?"

"Clapperton, Brinkman, and Dangle, of course."

"I tell you what," said Dento