ght," said Tom.

"That'll never do--don't you remember the levy of the School last half?"
put in another.

In fact, that solemn assembly, a levy of the School, had been held, at
which the captain of the School had got up, and, after premising that
several instances had occurred of matters having been reported to the
masters, that this was against public morality and School tradition;
that a levy of the sixth had been held on the subject, and they had
resolved that the practice must be stopped at once; had given out that
any boy, in whatever form, who should thenceforth appeal to a master,
without having first gone to some praepostor and laid the case before
him, should be thrashed publicly, and sent to Coventry.

"Well, then, let's try the sixth. Try Morgan," suggested another. "No
use"--"Blabbing won't do," was the general feeling.

"I'll give you fellows a piece of advice," said a voice from the end of
the Hall. They all turned round with a start, and the speaker got up
from a bench on which he had been lying unobserved, and gave himself a
shake; he was a big loose-made fellow, with huge limbs which had grown
too far through his jacket and trousers. "Don't you go to anybody at
all--you just stand out; say you won't fag--they'll soon get tired of
licking you. I've tried it on years ago with their forerunners."

"No! did you? tell us how it was," cried a chorus of voices, as they
clustered round him.

"Well, just as it is with you. The fifth-form would fag us, and I and
some more struck, and we beat 'em. The good fellows left off directly,
and the bullies who kept on soon got afraid."

"Was Flashman here then?"

"Yes! and a dirty little snivelling, sneaking fellow he was too. He
never dared join us, and used to toady the bullies by offering to fag
for them, and peaching against the rest of us."

"Why wasn't he cut then?" said East.

"Oh, toadies never get cut, they're too useful. Besides, he has no end
of great hampers from home, with wine and game in them; so he toadied
and fed himself into favour."

The quarter-to-ten bell now rang, and the small boys went off up-stairs,
still consulting together, and praising their new counsellor, who
stretched himself out on the bench before the Hall fire again. There he
lay, a very queer specimen of boyhood, by name Diggs, and familiarly
called "the Mucker." He was young for his size, and a very clever
fellow, nearly at the top of the fifth. His friends at home, having