n, "we couldn't go over. We've no
authority. But there's nothing to prevent you staying here and letting
them fetch you. Then we can interfere."

"All serene," said Corder; "I hope they will come. I say, I wish you'd
let me wait here and hear you fellows talk. I've not had a word spoken
to me for a week. I can tell you it's no joke. I laughed at it at
first, and thought it would be nice rather than otherwise. But after
two days, you chaps, it gets to be decidedly slow; you begin to wonder
if it isn't worth caving in. But that would be _such_ a howling come
down, when all you've done is to do what you had a right to do--or
rather what you're bound to do--play up for the School."

"And jolly well you played too," said Usher.

"It was a lucky turn. You know I was so awfully glad to be in the
fifteen, and felt I could do anything. Of course the lucky thing was my
getting past their forwards, and then--" And then Corder bunched into a
delighted account of the never-to-be-forgotten match, during which the
cloud passed away from his face, the light came back to his eyes, and
the spirit into his voice.

"What business have they to stop me," said he, "or bully me for it?"

"None. And Yorke, when he hears of it, will report it to the doctor."

"No, don't let him do that. What's the use? If I can stay here it's
all right."

An hour later, about the time that the young mountaineers were beginning
to look out for their second wind on the lower slope, Dangle came across
in a vicious temper.

He had not come to look for Corder, the sight of whom in the sanctuary
of a Classic study took him aback.

"That's where you're sneaking, is it?" said he. "I'm not surprised."

"Not much need to sneak from _you_. It's three against one I object
to," said Corder. "But if you like to fetch Clapperton and Brinkman
over here, we can have it out comfortably now."

"You must think yourself uncommonly important if you suppose we're going
to trouble about an ass like you," said Dangle. "I never once thought
of you."

"What have you come for, then?" said Fisher. "Hadn't you better wait
till you're invited before you come where you're not wanted?"

"I've come on club business, and I've a perfect right to come. You
fellows, I hear, have taken it into your heads to dissolve the club."

"What of that? Why didn't you come and vote against it if you didn't
like it?"

"Thank you. It wasn't quite good enough. What I want t