derisive cheers, and was called upon
to repeat the performance several times.

"Now shake hands again."

The boy tried to escape, but his arm was roughly seized, and his hand
once more captured in the ruthless grip of his host.

In vain he tried to get free. The more he struggled the tighter the
grip became, till at last he fairly fell on his knees, and howled for
pain.

Then Dick, who had gradually been boiling over, could stand it no
longer.

"Let his hand go!" he shouted, stepping up to the president, and
emphasising his demand with a slight push.

You might have knocked the Den down with a feather! They stared at one
another, and then at Dick, and then at one another again, until their
eyes ached.

Then Culver, utterly oblivious of his tight sleeves, or his dignified
position, turned red in the face and said--

"What do you mean?"

"What I say," said Dick, a trifle pale, and breathing hard.

"Will you fight?" said Culver.

"Yes," said Dick, in a dream, for his head was swimming round, and he
forgot where he was, and what the row was about.

"You mean it?" once more asked the president.

"Yes, I do," again retorted Dick.

"Very well," said Culver.

Instantly there was a stampede of the Den, and cries of "a fight!" shook
the halls and passages of Templeton.

The Sixth heard it in their lofty regions, whither they had retired
after the fatigue of levee.

"Pity to stop it," said Birket, who reported the state of the matter to
the seniors. "It'll do good."

"Who's the better man?" asked Cresswell.

"Culver, I fancy."

"Humph!" said the captain, "you'd better be there to see fair play,
Birket; and Cresswell will come down and stop it in ten minutes. Eh,
Cress?"

"All serene," said Cresswell.

CHAPTER TEN.

DESCRIBES A GREAT BATTLE, AND WHAT FOLLOWED.

Perhaps I ought to begin this chapter with an apology. Perhaps I ought
to delude my readers into the belief that it gives me far more pain to
describe a fight, than it gave Dick and his antagonist to take part in
it. Perhaps I ought to go back and alter my last chapter, and call in
the dogs of war. Perhaps I should solemnly explain to the reader how
much more beautiful it would have been in Dick, if, instead of letting
his angry passions rise at the sight of young Aspinall's wrongs, he had
walked kindly up to the bully, and laying his hand gently on his
shoulder, asked him with a sweet smile, whether he thought that was
quite a n