epped out of the
crowd.

"Please let me go," he said. "I just came to say there was too much
noise, and--"

But the laughter of the Limpets drowned the rest, in the midst of which
he retired miserably to the door and escaped.

In the passage outside he met Bloomfield, with Wibberly and Game,
hurrying to the scene of the riot. They scarcely deigned to recognise
him with anything more than a half-curious, half-contemptuous glance.

"Some one must stop this row!" said Bloomfield to his companions as they
passed. "The doctor will be down on us."

"You stop it, Bloomfield!" said Wibberly; "they'll shut up for _you_."

This was all the unfortunate Riddell heard, except that in a few moments
the uproar from the Fourth Form room suddenly ceased, and was not
renewed.

"What did Bloomfield do this morning when he came into your room?" asked
Riddell that evening of Wyndham junior, a Limpet in whom, for his
brother's sake, the new captain felt a special interest, and whom he
invited as often as he liked to come and prepare his lessons with him.

"Oh!" said Wyndham, who had been one of the combatants, "he gave Watkins
and Cattermole a hiding, and swore he'd allow no removes from the
Limpets' eleven to the school second this term if there was any more
row."

This reply by no means added to Riddell's comfort.

"Gave Cattermole and Watkins a hiding." Fancy _his_ attempting to give
Cattermole and Watkins a hiding! And not only that, he had held out
some awful threat about Limpets' cricket, which appeared to have a
magical effect.

Fancy the effect of _his_ threatening to exclude a Limpet from the
second-eleven--when it was all he knew that the school had a second-
eleven!

The difficulties and perplexities which had loomed before him in the
morning were closing around him now in grim earnest! The worst he had
feared had happened, and more than the worst. It was now proved beyond
all doubt that he was utterly incompetent. Would it not be sheer
madness in him to attempt this impossible task a day longer?

The reader has no doubt asked the same question long ago. Of _course_
it's madness of him to attempt it. A muff like Riddell never _could_ be
captain of a school, and it's all bosh to suppose he could be. But, my
dear reader, a muff like Riddell _was_ the captain of a school; and
what's more he didn't give it up even after the day's adventures just
described.

Riddell was not perfect. I know it is an unhear