It was during the geography hour. Mr. Bull had asked Nixon to define a watershed. Nixon,
who upon the previous evening had been too much occupied with his duties as Vice-President of the Anarchists to do much Prep, had replied with a seraphic smile that a watershed was "a place to shelter from the rain." As an improvised effort the answer seemed to him an extremely good one; but Mr. Bull had promptly left his seat, addressed Nixon as a "cheeky little hound," and committed the assault complained of.
"This sort of thing," observed Rumford tertius, the President, "can't go on. What shall we do?"
"We might saw one of the legs of his chair through," suggested one of the members.
"Who's going to do it?" inquired the President. "We'll only get slain."
Silence fell, as it usually does when the question of belling the cat arrives at the practical stage.
"We could report him to the Head," said another voice. "We might get him the sack for assault—even quod! We could show Nixon's head to him. It would be a sound scheme to make it bleed a bit before we took him up."
The speaker fingered a heavy ruler lovingly, but Mr. Nixon edged coldly out of reach.
"Certainly," agreed the President, "Bashan ought to be stopped knocking us about in form."
"I'd rather have one clout over the earhole," observed an Anarchist who so far had not spoken, "than be taken along to Bashan's study and given six of the best. That is what the result would be. Hallo, Stinker, what's that?"