ers, quite short of breath, and wondering at the
length of his own speech, they forgot the Captain's rebuke, and finished
their howl against Pledge to the bitter end.

"Does Pledge want to ask any more questions?" asked Mansfield.

Pledge laughed bitterly.

"No, thank you; I'm not quite clever enough for them."

"Perhaps you are right," said the Captain, drily. "And if you have
nothing more to say, perhaps you would like to go."

Pledge hesitated a moment, amid the howls which followed the Captain's
words. Then he coolly rose, and ascended the platform. His face was
flushed, and his eyes uneasy; but otherwise impudence befriended him,
and he stood there to all appearances neither humiliated nor dismayed.

"Gentlemen," he began; but a fresh storm arose, and drowned his voice.

The uproar continued till Mansfield called for order, and said--

"I think in ordinary decency you ought to treat everybody fairly on a
day like this. It will do you no harm, and it will be more worthy of
Templeton."

"Gentlemen," said Pledge, "thank you for being ordinarily decent,
although it wouldn't break my heart if you didn't hear me. It's not as
easy as you may suppose to stand up single-handed against a school full
of howling enemies. It's easy for you to howl when everybody howls on
your side. Suppose you change places with me, and try to speak when
everybody's howling against you. However, I don't complain. Somebody
must be on the losing side, and as all of you take care to be on the
winning. I'll do without you."

Pledge certainly knew his audience. He had hit them cleverly on a weak
point--the point of chivalry; and had he been content to rest where he
was, he might even yet have saved a following for himself in Templeton.
But he went on--

"Our three young friends have told you a pretty story, which has highly
amused you. It amused me too. They told you I had a spite against
them. I must say it's the first I've heard of it. As a rule Sixth-form
fellows don't waste much time in plotting against boys in the Third; but
Richardson evidently thinks he and his friends are considerably more
important than other boys of their age and brains. Suppose I were to
tell you that, instead of my having a spite against any one, somebody
has, for the last year, had a spite against me, and that somebody is the
holy Captain of Templeton? Suppose I told you that he dared not show it
openly, but made use of my wretched fag and h