and vouchsafed no further answer.

It was Stalky who laughed till he had to hold on by the edge of a basin.

"You _are_ a funny ass! What's that for?" said Beetle.

"I'm--I'm thinking of the flagrant injustice of it!"

THE MORAL REFORMERS.

There was no disguising the defeat. The victory was to Prout, but they
grudged it not. If he had broken the rules of the game by calling in the
Head, they had had a good run for their money.

The Reverend John sought the earliest opportunity of talking things
over. Members of a bachelor Common-room, of a school where masters'
studies are designedly dotted among studies and form-rooms, can, if they
choose, see a great deal of their charges. Number Five had spent some
cautious years in testing the Reverend John. He was emphatically a
gentleman. He knocked at a study door before entering; he comported
himself as a visitor and not a strayed lictor; he never prosed, and he
never carried over into official life the confidences of idle hours.
Prout was ever an unmitigated nuisance; King came solely as an avenger
of blood; even little Hartopp, talking natural history, seldom forgot
his office; but the Reverend John was a guest desired and beloved by
Number Five.

Behold him, then, in their only arm-chair, a bent briar between his
teeth, chin down in three folds on his clerical collar, and blowing like
an amiable whale, while Number Five discoursed of life as it appeared to
them, and specially of that last interview with the Head--in the matter
of usury.

"One licking once a week would do you an immense amount of good,"
he said, twinkling and shaking all over; "and, as you say, you were
entirely in the right."

"Ra-ather, Padre! We could have proved it if he'd let us talk," said
Stalky; "but he didn't. The Head's a downy bird."

"He understands you perfectly. Ho! ho! Well, you worked hard enough for
it."

"But he's awfully fair. He doesn't lick a chap in the morning an' preach
at him in the afternoon," said Beetle.

"He can't; he ain't in Orders, thank goodness," said McTurk. Number Five
held the very strongest views on clerical head-masters, and were ever
ready to meet their pastor in argument.

"Almost all other schools have clerical Heads," said the Reverend John
gently.

"It isn't fair on the chaps," Stalky replied. "Makes 'em sulky. Of
course it's different with you, sir. You belong to the school--same as
we do. I mean ordinary clergymen."

"Well, I am a most