“I want to speak to you, Burgess,” he said.

“What’s up?” said Burgess.

“You know young Jackson in our house.”

“What about him?”

“He’s been frightfully insolent.”

“Cheeked you?” said Burgess, a man of simple speech.

“I want you to call a prefects’ meeting, and lick him.”

Burgess looked incredulous.

“Rather a large order, a prefects’ meeting,” he said. “It has to be a pretty serious sort of thing for that.”

“Frightful cheek to a school prefect is a serious thing,” said Firby-Smith, with the air of one uttering an epigram.