"There you go again, always poking your wretched self in. What does it matter to you? You don't count at Garside. I do—that's the difference. I wish you wouldn't look at these things from such a selfish point of view. You're always thinking of yourself—a miserable fresher, as I've said, from Gaffer Quelch's. If it ever gets about the school that I've been made a Beetle under the Garside flag, what will the fellows think of it? I shall never hear the last of it. I shall be roasted all round."
"And serve you right, too!" cried Harry, losing his temper. "A jolly good roasting will do you good. It'll take some of the bounce out of you. If it hadn't been for you, we shouldn't have got into this mess."
"What do you mean?" demanded Plunger hotly.
"It was all through playing the spy on Percival. If it hadn't been for following him, those Beetles wouldn't have got hold of us."
"Come, that's good. Your cheek's superb. That's the only thing you seem to have brought with you from Gaffer Quelch's. Who was it suggested we should follow Percival? Was it me, I should like to know, or one of the little prigs from Gaffer Quelch's?"
Harry could not immediately respond. He had forgotten for the moment that the suggestion to follow Percival had come from him. But after a moment's reflection he answered lamely:
"Yes; but it was you who caught sight of Percival as he was on the road to St. Bede's and put the suggestion in my head."
"Well, of all the bosh——Oh, shut up, or put on a strait-waistcoat. You're getting dangerous," said Plunger crushingly, seeing that he had "scored."
Harry, indignant with himself, Plunger, and all the world, went on ahead. But after a bit Plunger caught up to him.
"You needn't get into a wax because I set you right just now. I flatter myself there aren't many chaps can score over me when I choose to set about them. It's not your fault that you've got too much of Gaffer Quelch's seminary for boys and girls about you. I had it for the first term at Garside, but I soon grew out of it. And you'll grow out of it, too. Fact is, Harry, neither of us is to blame for falling into the hands of the Philistines—Beetles, I mean. Let's put the blame on the right shoulders."