laid the case before
him, should be thrashed publicly, and sent to Coventry.

"Well, then, let's try the sixth. Try Morgan," suggested another. "No
use"--"Blabbing won't do," was the general feeling.

"I'll give you fellows a piece of advice," said a voice from the end
of the hall. They all turned round with a start, and the speaker got up
from a bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a
shake. He was a big, loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown
too far through his jacket and trousers. "Don't you go to anybody at
all--you just stand out; say you won't fag. They'll soon get tired of
licking you. I've tried it on years ago with their forerunners."

"No! Did you? Tell us how it was?" cried a chorus of voices, as they
clustered round him.

"Well, just as it is with you. The fifth form would fag us, and I and
some more struck, and we beat 'em. The good fellows left off directly,
and the bullies who kept on soon got afraid."

"Was Flashman here then?"

"Yes; and a dirty, little, snivelling, sneaking fellow he was too. He
never dared join us, and used to toady the bullies by offering to fag
for them, and peaching against the rest of us."

"Why wasn't he cut, then?" said East.

"Oh, toadies never get cut; they're too useful. Besides, he has no end
of great hampers from home, with wine and game in them; so he toadied
and fed himself into favour."

The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off upstairs,
still consulting together, and praising their new counsellor, who
stretched himself out on the bench before the hall fire again. There
he lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name Diggs, and familiarly
called "the Mucker." He was young for his size, and a very clever
fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. His friends at home, having
regard, I suppose, to his age, and not to his size and place in the
school, hadn't put him into tails; and even his jackets were always too
small; and he had a talent for destroying clothes and making himself
look shabby. He wasn't on terms with Flashman's set, who sneered at his
dress and ways behind his back; which he knew, and revenged himself
by asking Flashman the most disagreeable questions, and treating him
familiarly whenever a crowd of boys were round him. Neither was he
intimate with any of the other bigger boys, who were warned off by
his oddnesses, for he was a very queer fellow; besides, amongst other
failings, he had tha