; everyone except Gordon was relieved.

"Bend over there."

The beating was not so horrible an ordeal as he had expected. In the
same spirit in which the outhouse captains had raised no objection,
merely because they did not care in the least what happened to Gordon,
so now they did not take any particular trouble to hurt him. The ordeal
was rather a fiasco.

A halting oration had led to an even tamer execution. As Gordon walked
down the library steps he was painfully aware of having been the
principal character in a scene of sustained bathos. The body that
represented Fernhurst football had scarcely risen to the dignity of its
trust.

* * * * *

And then a sudden wave of feeling swept over him; and he saw the
horrible unfairness of the whole thing. It did not matter that Akerman
had made himself utterly ludicrous, or that the rest of the Games
Committee had been led to carry out a programme which they knew to be
hypocritical. It was the spirit that mattered. And at the back of it all
moved "the Bull" pulling the strings. In front of the School House
porch, clearly, dispassionately, Gordon put his case.

"I know when I play football I get a bit excited; I know my feet fly all
over the place. They did that ever since I was a baby. I know I
sometimes lose my temper. But I have been like that always. I have
played the same game in the Thirds, and in the Colts, my first term and
yesterday. But nobody said anything then. Do you remember the Milton
match? I went a bit far then: I was fearfully ashamed of myself
afterwards; I thought my play had been a disgrace to the school. But did
'the Bull' think so? Good Lord, no. He gave the side a jaw, and said
that they were a disgrace to the school, with the exception of me! I
played hard and all that, while the rest slacked and funked! I was
singled out for praise in the roughest game I have ever played. And now
what happens? The House begins to win its matches; 'the Bull' sees his
house losing cup after cup. He and Akerman and the other fools think
something must be done. So they wait for an opportunity and then give me
a Games Committee beating, to try and frighten the rest of the House.
They talked about my unsportsmanlike play. They did not mind when I
played rough against Milton. Oh dear, no! But when they find their own
dirty shins being hacked, they sit up and shriek. And they wait till
Hazelton stops out, too!"

Everyone agreed with him