The Bishop begged that Monk would not call him 'old chap'.
'I'll call you "sir", if you like,' said Monk.
A gleam of hope appeared in the Bishop's eye. Monk was going to give him the opportunity he had long sighed for. In cold blood he could attack no one, not even Monk, but if he was going to be rude, that altered matters.
'What business have you in the day-room?' he said. 'You've got studies of your own.'
'If it comes to that,' said Monk, 'so have you. We've got as much business here as you. What the deuce are you doing here?'
Taken by itself, taken neat, as it were, this repartee might have been insufficient to act as a casus belli, but by a merciful dispensation of Providence the senior day-room elected to laugh at the remark, and to laugh loudly. Monk also laughed. Not, however, for long. The next moment the Bishop had darted in, knocked his feet from under him, and dragged him to the door. Captain Kettle himself could not have done it more neatly.
'Now,' said the Bishop, 'we can discuss the point.'
Monk got up, looking greener than usual, and began to dust his clothes.
'Don't talk rot,' he said, 'I can't fight a prefect.'
This, of course, the Bishop had known all along. What he had intended to do if Monk had kept up his end he had not decided when he embarked upon the engagement. The head of a House cannot fight by-battles with his inferiors without the loss of a good deal of his painfully acquired dignity. But Gethryn knew Monk, and he had felt justified in risking it. He improved the shining hour with an excursus on the subject of bullying, dispensed a few general threats, and left the room.