"Go on, Sheen. What happened then?"
"I was cut by everybody. The fellows thought I had let the house down, and it got about, and the other houses scored off them, so I had rather a rotten time."
Here it occurred to him that he was telling his story without that attention to polite phraseology which a master expects from a boy, so he amended the last sentence.
"I didn't have a very pleasant time, sir," was his correction.
"Well?" said Mr Spence.
"So I was a bit sick," continued Sheen, relapsing once more into the vernacular, "and I wanted to do something to put things right again, and I met—anyhow, I took up boxing. I wanted to box for the house, if I was good enough. I practised every day, and stuck to it, and after a bit I did become pretty good."
"Well?"
"Then Drummond got mumps, and I wrote to him asking if I might represent the house instead of him, and I suppose he didn't believe I was any good. At any rate, he wouldn't let me go in. Then Joe—a man who knows something about boxing—suggested I should go down to Aldershot."
"Joe?" said Mr Spence inquiringly.
Sheen had let the name slip out unintentionally, but it was too late now to recall it.