'This is what I want him to do,' explained Taylor. 'I have heard that it is all through his father that we have got the beggar here, and so it's Mr. Morrison and that precious Council that must move him.'
'Of course,' assented Curtis. 'You hear, Morrison?'
'I tell you it must be some of the other fellows that must go and explain to the pater that the school don't like scholarship boys. You don't know my pater,' he went on, a little plaintively. 'He would very likely report us to the head master for sending the fellow to Coventry, and then where should we be?'
'Where we are now, but that fellow wouldn't.'
'I tell you, Curtis, you don't know the pater. He would ask what he had done that the school had sent him to Coventry, and you know well enough that we haven't acted on the square with him.'
'Oh, that's it, is it? You are going to take his part now, and peach on us!' raved Taylor.
Curtis yawned. 'You'd better give in, and do as Taylor orders you.'
'Well, then, I should peach, and no mistake, if I told my father we had sent the fellow to Coventry for the last month. "What for?" he would say in his quiet way, while he looked into your very soul, so that you knew you must make a clean breast of everything. No, thank you. I don't mind going with you and Taylor and two or three other fellows as a sort of deputation from——'
'Deputation be bothered!' interrupted Taylor viciously. 'Why should we go cap in hand to ask your father to take the fellow away? It ought to be enough for you to tell him that the school don't like it, and that we are determined to uphold the honour of Torrington's.'
'Yes, that's it. We don't mean to let the school go to the dogs to please anybody,' said Curtis lazily.