ered
to the table, buried his head in his arms, and shook with sobs. There
was no shadow of fight in either--only amazement, distress, and shame.

"Ca--can't he shave clean before tea, please?" said Campbell. "It's ten
minutes to bell."

Stalky shook his head. He meant to escort the half-shaved one to the
meal.

McTurk yawned in his chair and Beetle mopped his face. They were all
dripping with excitement and exertion.

"If I knew anything about it, I swear I'd give you a moral lecture,"
said Stalky severely.

"Don't jaw; they've surrendered," said McTurk. "This moral suasion
biznai takes it out of a chap."

"Don't you see how gentle we've been? We might have called Clewer in to
look at you," said Stalky. "'The bleatin' of the tiger excites the kid.'
But we didn't. We've only got to tell a few chaps in Coll. about this
and you'd be hooted all over the shop. Your life wouldn't be worth
havin'. But we aren't goin' to do that, either. We're strictly moral
suasers, Campbell; so, unless you or Seffy split about this, no one
will."

"I swear you're a brick," said Campbell. "I suppose I was rather a brute
to Clewer."

"It looked like it," said Stalky. "But I don't think Seffy need come
into hall with cock-eye whiskers. Horrid bad for the fags if they saw
him. He can shave. Ain't you grateful, Sefton?"

The head did not lift. Sefton was deeply asleep.

"That's rummy," said McTurk, as a snore mixed with a sob. "'Cheek, _I_
think; or else he's shammin'."

"No, 'tisn't," said Beetle. "'When 'Molly' Fairburn had attended to me
for an hour or so I used to go bung off to sleep on a form sometimes.
Poor devil! But he called me a beastly poet, though."

"Well, come on." Stalky lowered his voice. "Good-by, Campbell. 'Member,
if you don't talk, nobody will."

There should have been a war-dance, but that all three were so utterly
tired that they almost went to sleep above the tea-cups in their study,
and slept till prep.

"A most extraordinary letter. Are all parents incurably mad? What do you
make of it?" said the Head, handing a closely written eight pages to the
Reverend John.

"'The only son of his mother, and she a widow.' That is the least
reasonable sort." The chaplain read with pursed lips. "If half
those charges are true he should be in the sick-house; whereas he is
disgustingly well. Certainly he has shaved. I noticed that."

"Under compulsion, as his mother points out. How delicious! How
salutary!"

"Y