“He’s a brick,” said Ainger, as they returned to their studies. “He means to back us up, after all, and pay Bickers out.”
“What surprises me,” said Barnworth, “is that Stafford, the bull-dog, did not invite the intruder out into the square and impress the honour of our house with two black marks on each of his eyes.”
“I’m just as glad,” said Felgate, “it’s all happened. We shouldn’t have got Railsford with us if—”
“If you’d done your duty, and stopped the row the moment it began,” said Ainger; who, with all his jealousy for his house, had no toleration for humbug, even in a prefect whose cause he espoused. So Railsford’s house went to bed that night in a warlike mood.
Chapter Seven.
The Session of Masters and an Outrage.
It is to be feared that Mark Railsford, Moral Science man though he was, had yet to learn the art of applying his philosophy to his own circumstances, or he would never have committed the serious error, on the day following the event recorded in the last chapter, of writing the following foolish note to Mr Bickers:—
“February 1.