m I dare not. In that respect, whether I liked it
or not, I must "lie low."

The Philosophers were not long in formally exchanging opinions on the
situation.

A meeting was summoned for the same evening to inaugurate things
generally. I was a little doubtful what I ought to do. Last term
philosophy had not tended to diligent work, and with my good resolutions
in view I felt that I should be better out of it. The little tiff with
my comrades before the holidays had almost solved the difficulty; but
since then I had been formally re-admitted to the fold, and it would be
almost treasonable to "scratch" now.

"I _move_ and third, and old Trim seconds and fourths," announced
Langrish, "that old Sal be, and is, president as before."

"And I carry that motion," said Warminster, who prided himself on his
acquaintance with the procedure of public meetings.

"I move an amendment," said I.

"Shut up, or you'll be kicked out again," said the secretary.

"Shut up yourself, or you'll be kicked in," retorted I, feeling I must
carry everything with a high hand if I was to carry them at all. "No.
Look here, you chaps, I'm not so green as I look."

"Then you must look fearfully green," muttered Coxhead.

I took no heed of the interruption, which was not relevant, and
proceeded,--

"It was all very well last term, but it won't wash this. What I say is,
that if the cock of the school is the head boy in the school, and the
cock of the house is the head boy in the house, the president of the
Philosophers has got to be the chap highest up in the Philosophers, and
that's not me. Now old Warminster is. _He's_ a jolly clever chap, and
got the form prize on his head, and he's a rattling good speaker, and a
middling sprinter, and writes a fairly good hand! _He's_ the sort of
chap we want. We want some one who can keep the secretary, and
treasurer, and auditor, and registrar, and all that lot, in their place,
and doesn't mind telling them they're idiots when they are. I never
could do it. It's rough on the club not to have a chap like
Warminster," continued I, waxing warm, and undaunted by the murmurs of
my audience. "He can make you all sit up. He's not the sort of chap to
let the Philosophers go rotting about, talking what they know nothing
about and all that. He'll see that the louts are kept out of it, and
only fellows who've got a record of something are let in. Bless you, I
used to let in any sort of bounder that a