With frank or half-concealed curiosity everybody stared at his bruised face and half-closed optic. Old Man Wykeham, in discussing with him the prospects of the term, seemed to have eyes for nothing other than those scars of battle; Mr. Rooke was even more inquisitive, and made no bones about asking him the reason of it.
"I'd rather not say, sir, if you don't mind," Dick answered.
How long, he wondered, would the story of yesterday's encounter be in making its way to Foxenby? By anyone mischievously disposed towards him, it might so easily be described as "a pothouse brawl".
His fears in this direction were only too well grounded. Lyon, the cup-team's doughty full-back, speedily brushed away his last hope that the affair might never reach the school.
"I say, Forge, old man, somebody's set a nasty tale about concerning you," said the full-back anxiously.
"Why, what's being said?" Dick inquired, fearing the worst.
"Oh, some tin-pot yarn about you picking a quarrel with a yokel in Moston—a stupid clown who couldn't fight for toffee. The impression is that you were showing off your superior pugilistic skill, and that you sort of butchered this unscientific chawbacon to make a Moston holiday. Awful rot, of course, but what did actually happen?"
Dick groaned in spirit. Was he never to enjoy a minute's freedom from malice? There could be no doubt about it—Lyon was looking hard and pointedly at his battered and still-swollen face, and it was that close scrutiny which proved Dick's undoing. With all his nerves on edge he lost his temper.
"Well, Lyon, if you like to believe lots of confounded tosh, it's your own affair entirely," he burst out. "Let the old woman's tale go round the school. I shall take no trouble to contradict it!"
He left Lyon gasping there, and went off in search of the only person from whom he seemed likely to gain any sympathy—Roger Cayton, to wit. But Roger had not yet arrived, nor was there any sign that his baggage had come on in front of him.