lop-sided wreck in horror
and despair. Two fat tears rolled down his cheek.

"Oh, I forgot! I say, Sefton, what did you bully Clewer for?"

"Leave me alone! Oh, you infernal bullies, leave me alone! Haven't I had
enough?"

"He says we must leave him alone," said McTurk.

"He says we are bullies, an' we haven't even begun yet," said Beetle.
"You're ungrateful, Seffy. Golly! You do look an atrocity and a half!"

"He says he has had enough," said Stalky. "He errs!"

"Well, to work, to work!" chanted McTurk, waving a stump. "Come on, my
giddy Narcissus. Don't fall in love with your own reflection!"

"Oh, let him off," said Campbell from his corner; "he's blubbing, too."

Sefton cried like a twelve-year-old with pain, shame, wounded vanity,
and utter helplessness.

"You'll make it _pax_, Sefton, won't you? You can't stand up to those
young devils--"

"Don't be rude, Campbell, de-ah," said McTurk, "or you'll catch it
again!"

"You _are_ devils, you know," said Campbell.

"What? for a little bullyin'--same as you've been givin' Clewer! How
long have you been jestin' with him?" said Stalky. "All this term?"

"We didn't always knock him about, though!"

"You did when you could catch him," said Beetle, cross-legged on the
floor, dropping a stump from time to time across Sefton's instep. "Don't
I know it!"

"I--perhaps we did."

"And you went out of your way to catch him? Don't I know it! Because he
was an awful little beast, eh? Don't I know it! Now, you see, _you_'re
awful beasts, and you're gettin' what he got--for bein' a beast. Just
because we choose."

"We never really bullied him--like you've done us."

"Yah!" said Beetle. "They never really bully--'Molly' Fairburn didn't.
Only knock 'em about a little bit. That's what they say. Only kick their
souls out of 'em, and they go and blub in the box-rooms. Shove their
heads into the ulsters an' blub. Write home three times a day--yes,
you brute, I've done that--askin' to be taken away. You've never been
bullied properly, Campbell I'm sorry you made _pax_."

"I'm not!" said Campbell, who was a humorist in a way. "Look out, you're
slaying Sefton!"

In his excitement Beetle had used the stump unreflectingly, and Sefton
was now shouting for mercy.

"An' you!" he cried, wheeling where he sat. "You've never been bullied,
either. Where were you before you came here?"

"I--I had a tutor."

"Yah! You would. You never blubbed in your life. But you're blubbin'