lace between you--to ruin my work and stand in my
light. Both of you as individuals are well worth your places in both
under-sixteen sides, football and cricket. As individuals, I say; and
you think you are indispensable to the side, and that we can't do
without you. You can afford to laugh when you miss catches, and not pay
attention to me when I am trying to give you the benefits of my
experience."

"I heard every word----"

"Will you kindly wait till I have finished. Fernhurst has done very well
in the past without you and Lovelace, and five years hence it will have
to do without you, and I am not going to have you interfere with the
present. You hate me, I dare say; from all I hear of you, you hate my
house; and you stir up sedition against me. You show the others how
much you care for me. And you are both people who have some influence in
your house, and wherever you are, for that matter. And are you using it
for the good of Fernhurst? You ruined all my pleasure in the cricket
Colts; but I don't care about myself. All I care for is Fernhurst. Why
did I stop Lovelace being captain? Because I want a man who is going to
back me up, who is going to play for the side and not for himself. And I
tell you I am going to drop Lovelace; he plays for himself; he gives
rotten passes; he upsets combination; and I won't have him on my side."

Gordon could stand it no longer.

"Sir, I am not going to hold a brief for myself. But you have not
treated Lovelace fairly. Last year on a trial game you kicked him out of
the side, only to find in a week that you could not do without him. And
to-day, sir, on a trial game you deposed him from the captaincy."

"Do you mean to say that after playing Rugby football for twenty-five
years I don't know what I am talking about?"

Gordon saw he had said too much.

"And I am not talking about his play, I am talking about his general
attitude. Now, didn't you two rag about a good deal at the nets last
term?"

"Well, sir, it was hardly ragging, sir----"

"Oh, hardly ragging.... There must be no ragging.... If we are going to
turn out good sides we must be in dead earnest the whole time. You
imagine you are loyal to Fernhurst. My old sides followed me implicitly.
I loved them, and they loved me. We worked together for Fernhurst; now,
are you doing your best for Fernhurst?"

Gordon was overwhelmed. He wanted to tell "the Bull" how mistaken he
was; that he and Lovelace did not hate him at all