Vernon shifted his feet uneasily. 'Well, _I_ shouldn't like to take a lickin' from Pot,' he said. 'Wouldn't you?' Winton asked, as he paged the sheets of lines with hands that shook. 'No, I shouldn't,' said Vernon, his freckles growing more distinct on the bridge of his white nose. 'Well, I'm going to take it'--Winton moved clear of the desk as he spoke. 'But _you're_ going to take a lickin' from me first.' Before any one realised it, he had flung himself neighing against Vernon. No decencies were observed on either side, and the rest looked on amazed. The two met confusedly, Vernon trying to do what he could with his longer reach; Winton, insensible to blows, only concerned to drive his enemy into a corner and batter him to pulp. This he managed over against the fire-place, where Vernon dropped half-stunned. 'Now I'm going to give you your lickin',' said Winton. 'Lie there till I get a ground-ash and I'll cut you to pieces. If you move, I'll chuck you out of the window.' He wound his hands into the boy's collar and waistband, and had actually heaved him half off the ground before the others with one accord dropped on his head, shoulders, and legs. He fought them crazily in an awful hissing silence. Stalky's sensitive nose was rubbed along the floor; Beetle received a jolt in the wind that sent him whistling and crowing against the wall; Perowne's forehead was cut, and Malpass came out with an eye that explained itself like a dying rainbow through a whole week. 'Mad! Quite mad!' said Stalky, and for the third time wriggled back to Winton's throat. The door opened and King came in, Hartopp's little figure just behind him. The mound on the floor panted and heaved but did not rise, for Winton still squirmed vengefully. 'Only a little play, sir,' said Perowne. ''Only hit my head against a form.' This was quite true. 'Oh,' said King. '_Dimovit obstantes propinquos._ You, I presume, are the _populus_ delaying Winton's return to--Mullins, eh?' 'No, sir,' said Stalky behind his claret-coloured handkerchief. 'We're the _maerentes amicos_.' 'Not bad! You see, some of it sticks after all,' King chuckled to Hartopp, and the two masters left without further inquiries. The boys sat still on the now-passive Winton. 'Well,' said Stalky at last, 'of all the putrid he-asses, Pater, you are _the_--' 'I'm sorry. I'm awfully sorry,' Winton began, and they let him rise. He held out his hand to the bruised and bewildered Vernon. 'Sorry, Paddy. I--I must have lost my temper. I--I don't know what's the matter with me.' ''Fat lot of good that'll do my face at tea,' Vernon grunted. 'Why couldn't you say there was something wrong with you instead of lamming out like a lunatic? Is my lip puffy?' 'Just a trifle. Look at my beak! Well, we got all these pretty marks at footer--owin' to the zeal with which we played the game,' said Stalky, dusting himself. 'But d'you think you're fit to be let loose again, Pater? 'Sure you don't want to kill another sub-prefect? I wish _I_ was Pot. I'd cut your sprightly young soul out.' 'I s'pose I ought to go to Pot now,' said Winton. 'And let all the other asses see you lookin' like this! Not much. We'll all come up to Number Five Study and wash off in hot water. Beetle, you aren't damaged. Go along and light the gas-stove.' 'There's a tin of cocoa in my study somewhere,' Perowne shouted after him. 'Rootle round till you find it, and take it up.' Separately, by different roads, Vernon's jersey pulled half over his head, the boys repaired to Number Five Study. Little Hartopp and King, I am sorry to say, leaned over the banisters of King's landing and watched. 'Ve-ry human,' said little Hartopp. 'Your virtuous Winton, having got himself into trouble, takes it out of my poor old Paddy. I wonder what precise lie Paddy will tell about his face.' 'But surely you aren't going to embarrass him by asking?' said King. '_Your_ boy won,' said Hartopp. 'To go back to what we were discussing,' said King quickly, 'do you pretend that your modern system of inculcating unrelated facts about chlorine, for instance, all of which may be proved fallacies by the time the boys grow up, can have any real bearing on education--even the low type of it that examiners expect?' 'I maintain nothing. But is it any worse than your Chinese reiteration of uncomprehended syllables in a dead tongue?' 'Dead, forsooth!' King fairly danced. 'The only living tongue on earth! Chinese! On my word, Hartopp!' 'And at the end of seven years--how often have I said it?' Hartopp went. . . . . . .