squinney-eyed, ill-dressed mules,
with large boots and turn-up noses, and afraid of their lives to move
off where they are, those are the prize lunatics. I have pleasure in
exhibiting a few choice specimens collected from various sources. The
one thing--"

"--The one thing about mud is, it daren't come within reach of you,"
continued Trimble, getting a little random in his statements, "for fear
of getting one in the eye. If you want a sample--"

"--There's one," shouted Flitwick, interrupting our orator with a
fragment of mother earth in his face.

Of course it was all up after that. Doctor or no doctor, we couldn't
sit by and see our treasurer assaulted. So we hurled ourselves on the
foe, regardless of consequences, and a deadly fight ensued. Some of the
more cautious of our number were lucky enough to be able to drag their
men off the prohibited field and engage them on the right side of the
fence.

I was not so lucky--indeed, I was doubly unlucky. For not only was my
adversary my dear friend Dicky Brown, whom I loved as a brother, but he
edged further and further afield as the combat went on, so that at the
last we were cut off from the main body and left to fight our duel
conspicuously in the open.

Dicky was not a scientific pugilist, but he had an awkward way of
closing in with you and getting you round the middle just at the moment
that his left foot got round behind your right calf. And it grieves me
to say that, although I boasted of far more talent in the exercise of
the fistic art than he did, he had me on my back on the grass just as
Mr Sharpe of all persons walked by.

"What are you two doing?" demanded the master, stopping short.

"Fighting, sir," said the stalwart Dicky, "and I licked him."

"Why are you fighting?"

"Because Flitwick shied mud at Trimble," said I.

The reason did not seem to appeal to Mr Sharpe, who replied,--

"You heard the doctor's orders yesterday, Jones iv., about keeping off
the playing field?"

"Yes, sir," said I, realising for the first time that I was well out in
the middle of the field, and that the rest of my comrades were looking
on from a safe distance.

"Come to me after school for exemplary punishment. You are the most
disorderly boy in the house, and it is evident a lenient punishment is
no good in your case."

"Please, sir," said the loyal Dicky, "I lugged him on a good part of the
way."

"No, you didn't," snarled I--taking this as a taunt, w