were your natural enemies, and if you were caught by them that was the fortune of war. But if Carrots or Goggles and all the crew were enemies also, they ought to be declared enemies. Instead they pretended to be friends, with their sisterly advice, and their olive-branches and their treacherous smiles. . . . Oh, the Magnificat. That was soon over, and again David’s disapproving eye glanced up at Goggles and Carrots during the second lesson. This time they had turned round on their organ-bench and spread their Bibles on their knees, ostentatiously following the lesson as an example to the school. David was afraid they were hypocrites, and, having found his place, continued to meditate on them. Yes: there had been a first-form conference on the subject of Goggles and Carrots when Ferrers returned that afternoon from a short and extremely painful interview with the Head, and it had been settled that Goggles and Carrots must be cut. David had, at the time, been opposed to cutting Goggles as well as her sneaking sister, because Goggles wasn’t such a bad chap, and there was nothing against her personally. But he and a small minority had been overruled; if Carrots had sneaked, Goggles might sneak next, and it was wiser to have no truck at all with the enemy’s family. Though Goggles at this moment looked innocent enough, with the low sun shining through a stained glass window on to her spectacles and protuberant eyes, David felt that after all, it was wiser to err on the side of prudence than to be led into a course of mistaken kindness. But it was rather difficult: only yesterday she had congratulated him, with apparent sincerity, on his innings of twenty-four, and had offered him a visit to the strawberry-beds in the garden. He had been compelled, by the resolution passed by the sixth-form conference, to decline this temptation, and to say with a stony face, “Thank you, Miss Mabel, but I can’t.” Even that was not strictly in accordance with the vow: he ought really to have icily raised his cap, and said nothing whatever.