afraid it's all true."

"Well, at any rate, I will say this," continued Henderson, whose flow of
words was rather stopped by his having been pulled up so often--"and I
ought to know, for I was in the room at the time, and I appeal to
Anthony and Franklin, and all the rest of the dormitory, to say if it
isn't true. It _wasn't_ a joke. It wasn't _meant_ for a joke. It was
a piece of deliberate, diabolical--"

"Oh! oh! oh!" began a few of Harpour's claqueurs, and the chorus was
again swelled by a score of others.

"I repeat it--of deliberate, diabolical cruelty, chosen just because
there was nothing more cruel they dared to do. And," he said, speaking
at the top of his voice, to make himself heard over the clamour, "the
fellows who did it are a disgrace to Saint Winifred's, and they deserve
to be caned by the monitors, if any fellows ever did."

He sat down amid a storm of disapprobation, but his look never quailed
for an instant, as he glanced steadily round, and noticed how Kenrick,
though in favour with the multitude, and so much higher in the school,
did not venture to meet his eye. And he was more than compensated for
the general disfavour, by feeling Power's hand rest on his shoulder, and
hearing him whisper, "That's _famous_, Flip; you're a dear plucky
fellow. Walter himself couldn't have done it more firmly."

Then Belial-like, rose Mackworth, perfectly at his ease, intending as
much general mischief as lay in his power, and bent on saying as many
unpleasant things as he could. In this, however, his benevolent views
were materially frustrated by Henderson, who made his contemptuous
comments in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by many, and quite
distinctly enough to disconcert Mackworth's oratory.

"As the gentleman who has just sat down has poured so many bottles of
wrath--"

"Bottles of French varnish," suggested Henderson--"on our heads
generally, I must be allowed to make a few remarks in reply. His speech
consisted of nothing but rabid abuse; without a shred of
argument."--"Rabid fact without a shred of fudge," interpolated
Henderson.

"If for every trifling freak fellows were to be telling the monitors, we
had better inaugurate at once the era of sneaks and cowards."

"Era of sham polish and fiddlestick ends," echoed Henderson; and
Mackworth, who had every intention of making a very flourishing speech,
was so disconcerted by this unwonted pruning of his periods, that he
somewhat abrupt