nd upon it he was right. We cheered him loud enough then, why not
take his advice still?" (Loud cheers.)

This spirited address roused the applause of all the better-minded
section, whose cheers were not wholly unmingled with self-reproach.
Bloomfield himself, it was plain, felt its force, and as to the more
vehement members of Parrett's, it considerably damped their ardour.

"Old man," said Fairbairn that evening to his friend the captain, "you
struck a really good blow for the school this afternoon. I don't know
how you managed to pitch on just the right thing to say, as you did.
Things will come all right, take my word for it. They're beginning
already."

Alas, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, as Willoughby had
yet to discover.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

IS WILLOUGHBY MAD?

Things did not mend all at once at Willoughby. No one expected they
would. And within a few days after the "debate in Parliament" it seemed
as if the school had finally abandoned all ideas of order and
discipline.

The reader will remember that more than once mention had been made of an
approaching election for the free and enlightened borough of Shellport,
which was occupying the attention not only of the town, and of the
doctor and his ladies, but also of the boys themselves. And the cheers
with which Morrison's notice of motion, mentioned in the last chapter,
was received, showed plainly enough how things were going.

By long tradition Willoughby had been a Whig school. Fellows did not
exactly know what Whig meant, but they knew it was the opposite of Tory
on one side and Radical on the other, and they went accordingly. On the
present occasion, moreover, they had a sort of personal interest in the
event, for the Whig candidate, Sir George Pony, had been discovered to
be a sort of second uncle a few times removed of Pringle, one of the
Parrett's fags, whereas the Radical, Mr Cheeseman, was a nobody!

For all these reasons Willoughby felt it had a great stake in the
contest, and tacitly determined to make its voice heard.

Small election meetings were held by the more enthusiastic politicians
of the school, for the purpose of giving vent to their anti-radical
sympathies. At these one boy was usually compelled to represent the
Whig and another to figure as the unpopular Radical. And the cheering
of the one and the hooting of the other was an immense consolation to
the young patriots; and when, as usually happened,