air.
He would simply waltz away without an effort, and laugh at them: wherein
he was filling Jarnley and Co.'s cup of wrath very full. But an event
was destined to occur which should cause it to brim over.

One afternoon, owing to the noxious exhalations arising from a
presumably poisoned rat within the wainscoting common to the third and
fourth form rooms, both those classes were ordered to the big
schoolroom, and allotted desk work to fill in the time.

Now the rows of lockers were arranged in tiers all down one half of the
long room, leaving the other half open, with its big desk in the centre
dominating the whole. Ill chance indeed was it that located Anthony's
form in the row beneath, and himself immediately in front of, his sworn
foe.

Now Jarnley began to taste the sweets of revenge. More than one kick,
hard and surreptitious, nearly sent the victim clean off the form, and
the bright idea which occurred to Jarnley, of fixing a pin to the toe of
his boot had to be abandoned, for the cogent reason that neither he nor
any of his immediate neighbourhood could produce the pin. Meanwhile the
master in charge lounged in the big desk, blissfully reading.

"Look here, Cetchy," whispered Jarnley, having varied the entertainment
with a few tweaks of his victim's wool. "Turn round, d'you hear: put
your finger on that."

"That" being a penholder held across the top of one of the inkwells let
into the desk.

"Put it on, d'you hear. I'll let you off any more if you do. No--press
hard."

For Anthony had begun to obey orders, but gingerly. Once more was
Jarnley digging his own grave, so to say. The black finger was now held
down upon the round penholder, and of course what followed was a
foregone conclusion. Its support suddenly withdrawn, knuckle deep went
that unlucky digit into the well, but with such force that a very
fountain of ink squirted upward, to splash down, a long running smudge,
right across the sheet of foolscap which Jarnley had just covered,
thereby rendering utterly useless the results of nearly half an hour's
work. This was too much. Reaching forward, the bully gripped the
perpetrator of this outrage by the wool where it ended over the nape of
the neck, and literally plucked out a wisp thereof.

"I'll kill you for this, you black devil," he said, in a snarling
whisper.

But the reply was as startling as it was unexpected. Maddened by the
acute pain, all the savage within him aroused, an