is soup. How do I know? Well, I
had been asked, I believe, to give the bewildered Gus a little
countenance. Gus went home, a day or two later, to the bosom of his
family, where he was treated with the utmost honour. He redeemed the
watch from the jeweller, and fulfilled his own promise to that worthy
man. All through the holidays he basked in the smiles of his proud
father, and rode that gentleman's pedigree hack. Corker's highest mark
of appreciation was to give you a dinner; with Gus's father it was to
let you ride his own horse.

CHAPTER XXV

A LITTLE ROUGH JUSTICE

Quietly and without any fuss the few details were arranged, and next
morning four of us filtered down to the old milling ground, on whose
green sod so many wrongs had been righted in the old times, and where I
sincerely hoped Phil would yet redress, however imperfectly, another.

Of course, we all know fisticuffs are not what they were; for every
strenuous mill of to-day there used to be fifty in the old days, and the
green turf which formerly was the scene of terrific combats between
fellows of the Upper School now only quaked under the martial hoof of,
say, Rogers, the prize fag of Biffen's, and Poulett, the champion egg
poacher of Corker's, and other humble followers of the "fancy." Milling
as an institution in the schools may write up "Ichabod" above its gates.

I tossed with Vercoe for corners, and when I won, I chose the favourite
corner, the one King had when he fought Sellers with a broken wrist, and
beat him, too; which Cooper had when he stood up to Miller for one whole
half-holiday, and though beaten three or four times over, never knew it,
and won in the end, which mills and the causes thereof, if some one
would write about them, would make capital reading. Anyhow, it is a
lucky corner, from the legends connected with it, and I thought we
should need any luck that might be knocking about so early in the
morning.

Phil was as cool and calm as though he were going to gently tund a small
fag for shirking. Acton was outwardly calm, but inwardly seething with
hate, rage, and blood-thirstiness. His proud soul lusted for the
opportunity to repay the flick on the face he had received from Phil,
with interest. I watched the sparkling fire in his eye, the unaffected
eagerness for the fray in his pose, and thought that even Acton had not
quite the skill to cater for such a large and lusty appetite. Vercoe and
I set our watches, and agreed