This was too much. We were few in number, and the palings were hard and uncomfortable. But if they thought they were going to frighten us away by this demonstration, they were mistaken.
Langrish, in a loud voice, called out “Chair,” whereupon I, taking the cue, and assuming that the Philosophers were in congress, called upon Mr Trimble to favour us with his oration on “Mud.”
“Oh, all serene,” said Trimble, who till that moment had had as little notion of his subject as I had had. “Mud is dirty lumps of stuff lying about on the grass, like what you see in front of you. It has neither brains nor sense. It’s a vile thing to look at, and worse to touch. If you—”
”—If you,” here broke in Mr Flitwick, “want to see what lunatics really are, you should look on the palings of some of our school playing fields. If you happen to see a row of squinney-eyed, ill-dressed mules, with large boots and turn-up noses, and afraid of their lives to move off where they are, those are the prize lunatics. I have pleasure in exhibiting a few choice specimens collected from various sources. The one thing—”
”—The one thing about mud is, it daren’t come within reach of you,” continued Trimble, getting a little random in his statements, “for fear of getting one in the eye. If you want a sample—”
”—There’s one,” shouted Flitwick, interrupting our orator with a fragment of mother earth in his face.
Of course it was all up after that. Doctor or no doctor, we couldn’t sit by and see our treasurer assaulted. So we hurled ourselves on the foe, regardless of consequences, and a deadly fight ensued. Some of the more cautious of our number were lucky enough to be able to drag their men off the prohibited field and engage them on the right side of the fence.
I was not so lucky—indeed, I was doubly unlucky. For not only was my adversary my dear friend Dicky Brown, whom I loved as a brother, but he edged further and further afield as the combat went on, so that at the last we were cut off from the main body and left to fight our duel conspicuously in the open.
Dicky was not a scientific pugilist, but he had an awkward way of closing in with you and getting you round the middle just at the moment that his left foot got round behind your right calf. And it grieves me to say that, although I boasted of far more talent in the exercise of the fistic art than he did, he had me on my back on the grass just as Mr Sharpe of all persons walked by.
“What are you two doing?” demanded the master, stopping short.