"Humph!" said Fletcher; "that's a nice sort of a round robin, don't you call it? Well, what are you going to do?"
"Oh, I shall resign and have done with it. I'm sick of having to masquerade about as a good boy. I mean to do what I like."
"Pooh!" returned the other. "Now that you are a prefect, I wouldn't give up all the privileges and the right to go out and come in when you like just because a strait-laced chap like Allingford chooses to take offence at something you do. They can't force you to resign unless they go to the doctor, and they won't do that. I know what I'd do: I'd tell them pretty straight to go and be hanged, and keep their sermonizing to themselves."
Thurston turned on the speaker with a sudden burst of anger.
"Oh yes!" he exclaimed; "you're always saying you'd do this and do that, but when the time comes you turn tail and sneak away. Look here: you were the one who proposed going into the Black Swan this morning, and when young Mouler said Allingford was coming, you slipped out of the back door and left us to face the shindy."
"Well," returned the other, laughing, "I thought you chaps were going to bolt too. I hopped over the wall at the back into the field, and waited there for about a quarter of an hour, and then, as no one came, I made tracks home."
"That's all very fine. You took precious good care to save your own bacon; you always do."
"Oh, go on!" answered Fletcher, rising from his chair; "you're in a wax to-night. Well, ta, ta! Don't you resign."
This little passage of arms was not the first of the kind that had taken place between Fletcher and Thurston, and it did not prevent a renewal of their friendship on the morrow.
The latter, following either his own inclination or the advice of his chum, decided not to resign his position as a prefect, and in a few days' time the majority of the school had wellnigh forgotten the fracas at the Black Swan.