t was the last straw to break the back of the
school's patience.

It was customary, after the Carthusian match, for the footer captain to
give his eleven a formal tea, Phil arranged the usual preliminaries, sick
at heart, and wearily certain as to the result. Three put in an
appearance--Vercoe, Baines, and Roberts--and in place of the burly forms
of the rest of the St. Amory's eleven, the sylph-like figures of their
fags flitted to Phil's hall of entertainment with curt little notes.
Worcester and the rest "regretted they were unable to avail themselves of
the captain's invitation."

The tea was not a success.

The school followed the plain lead of the eleven, and as Phil hurried
along to chapel the next day no one hooked in with him, as had been done
"the day before yesterday!" He was left severely alone.

In plain words, St Amory's School consigned Phil Bourne to Coventry.

CHAPTER VII

THANKS TO ACTON

After the Carthusian match there was but one topic, or to be strictly
accurate, perhaps, two topics of interest in the school--who would be
cock-house at footer and who would get the Perry Exhibition.

The rest of the houses knew that Biffen's house was not now the
unconsidered article it was once; that it wasn't the door-mat upon which
any one might wipe his feet before proceeding into the inner circles of
the housers' competition, and there was more than a little curiosity to
see how far the "resurrected" house would mount.

But not a single soul dreamt that it would reach the final. The whole
school gasped for a fortnight on end as Biffen's annihilated Dover's,
Hargen's, Sharpe's, and Merishall's _seriatim_, and at last faced
Corker's house in the final. This was a resurrected house with a
vengeance! Corker's had had a bye in the first round and had been drawn
against rather rickety houses since, but they were generally fancied to
pull off the final as usual, for Bourne was captain, and they had Hodgson
and Roberts of the eleven as well. The wonderful progress of Biffen's had
thrown an awful lot of excitement into the game.

The match was fixed for the last Saturday in the term, and the result of
the Perry Exhibition was to be announced on the evening of the same day,
so the last Saturday was going to be the memorable day of the Michaelmas
stretch.

If you want a full account of the match you had better write to the editor
of _The Amorian_. He will send you the magazine with a page or so of
des