"He stood waving his glass, but anybody could see that he was in a putrid funk. "Hughie shut the door behind him and leaned against it, and said:-- "'Muggeridge, I don't know you very intimately, but I know this, that you always were a worm and a bounder. You can't altogether help that, and personally I don't particularly mind, although you give the College away a bit. Still, I think the College can bear that. You are quite at liberty to get full and amuse yourself in any way you please, so long as you and your pals don't interfere with other people. But when it comes to disturbing my crew, who have to fight the battles of the College on behalf of warriors like you and these gentlemen here, whose favourite field-sport is probably billiards--well, that's just what I call a bit _too_ thick!' "All this time Muggeridge was looking pretty averagely uncomfortable. The other chaps were gazing at him, evidently waiting for a lead. But you could see he was pretty well up a stump as to what to do next. However, next time old Hughie paused for breath, he said:-- "'Oh, get out!' "It was a rotten thing to say. Hughie smiled at him. "'All right,' he said, 'but I must put you to bed before I go.' "Before anybody could do anything he was across the room and had a grip of Muggeridge by the back of the neck and one wrist, which he twisted round behind somehow. Then he turned him round, and kicked him all the way across the room into his bedroom. He used Muggeridge's head as a sort of battering-ram to open the door with. Oh, it was the most gorgeous spectacle!" There was a little sigh of rapture all round the group. Muggeridge was a prominent member of that class of society which undergraduates and other healthy and outspoken Philistines designate simply and comprehensively as "Tishbites" or "Tishes." "He shut him in and locked the door," continued the coxswain, "and then he turned on the other eight. They were a pretty average lot of worms--you know them?" There was a murmur of assent, and Mr. Poltimore, with rather belated presence of mind, hurriedly explained to the Oxford gentleman that the band of heroes under discussion were not in any sense representative of the rank and file of the College. "--And they just sat round the table looking perfectly paralytic. (As a matter of fact most of them were.) Hughie laid hold of the biggest of them--Skeffington--and said:-- "'This meeting is adjourned, gentlemen. Just to show you that I'm speaking the truth, I'll heave the senior member present downstairs!'" "Did he?" asked everybody. "No. He'd have killed him if he had. He picked Skeff up by the collar and the seat of his bags and said to me, 'Watch 'em, Dishy!' Then he carried Skeff downstairs, and slugged him into the middle of the grass plot outside." "Good egg!" murmured Mr. Angus. "Didn't the others try to bolt?" inquired Towzer.