Horace wondered how long this was going to last. He had made several attempts to break through this silent persecution, but each boy to whom he had spoken had walked away as though he was stone deaf; and so at last Horace gave up the attempt, and tried to be happy in spite of this.
'I say, Morrison, how much longer is that beggar going to hold out?' said Taylor, one day speaking to Leonard, as though he ought to know all about it.
Taylor had lost his place in the class, and so had Leonard, and neither felt very amiable.
'Ask him, if you want to know. I'm nearly sick of it, I can tell you. It's lasted a month now, and I think we may as well give it up.'
'I daresay you do. My brother who has just come home from Oxford, says it is your people who have brought him into the school.'
'My people!' shouted Leonard, crimson with wrath at the insinuation. 'Who do you mean by "my people?" and why should you think so?'
'Now don't get mad, Len,' said Taylor in a quieter tone. 'But you know your father is on the County Council, and they say it was he who recommended that Howard should be sent to Torrington's.'
'I don't believe it!' blazed Leonard Morrison; and then with fine inconsistency he added, 'If he did, it was because the fellow got a scholarship, and he had to go somewhere.'
'Anywhere but at Torrington's would have done for him,' grumbled Taylor; 'and I think the master or the Council ought to turn him out, now they know the rest of the fellows don't like it.'
'But do they know we have sent him to Coventry?' asked Leonard.