hatever might come
with pluck and good temper. I had been a fool, but I would show that I
was not a coward.

I was very glad that Rupert's influenza kept him at home for a few
days. I told him briefly that I had been bullied, but that it was my
own fault, and I would rather say no more about it. I begged him to
promise that he would not take up my quarrel in any way, but leave me
to fight it out for myself, which he did. When he came back I think he
regretted his promise. Happily he never heard all the ballad, but the
odd verses which the boys sang about the place put him into a fury. It
was a long time before he forgave me, and I doubt if he ever quite
forgave Weston.

I held out as well as I could. I made no complaint, and kept my
temper. I must say that Henrietta behaved uncommonly well to me at
this time.

"After all, you know, Charlie," she said, "you've not done anything
_really wrong or dishonourable_." This was true, and it comforted me.

Except Henrietta, I really had not a friend; for Rupert was angry with
me, and the holding up at school only made me feel worse at home.

At last the joke began to die out, and I was getting on very well, but
for one boy, a heavy-looking fellow with a pasty face, who was always
creeping after me, and asking me to tell him about my father. "Johnson
Minor," we called him. He was a younger brother of Thomas Johnson, the
champion of the code of honour.

He was older than I, but he was below me in class, and though he was
bigger, he was not a very great deal bigger; and if there is any truth
in the stories I have so often told, our family has been used to fight
against odds for many generations.

I thought about this a good deal, and measured Johnson Minor with my
eye. At last I got Henrietta to wrestle and box with me for practice.

She was always willing to do anything Tomboyish, indeed she was
generally willing to do anything one wanted, and her biceps were as
hard as mine, for I pinched them to see. We got two pairs of gloves,
much too big for us, and stuffed cotton wool in to make them like
boxing-gloves, as we used to stuff out the buff-coloured waistcoat
when we acted old gentlemen in it. But it did not do much good; for I
did not like to hurt Henrietta when I got a chance, and I do not think
she liked to hurt me. So I took to dumb-belling every morning in my
night-shirt; and at last I determined I would have it out with Johnson
Minor, once for all.

One afternoon