David’s mind had been pretty busy with these trains of thought, and his attention to the service, from a devotional point of view, intermittent and fragmentary. More than once he stole a glance at Bags as a general reconnoitring measure. It appeared from a certain gingerliness in Bags’s movements, when he sat down or stood, that he was not quite comfortable, and, since accounts had been squared between them, David hoped he had not hurt him much; the kick in the main was meant to be symbolical, and he determined that unless Bags actually wanted to be nasty, he would make it up directly after chapel. David’s cheerful and eager soul hated prolonged or nagging warfare, and, since Bags had been paid for his injudicious behaviour during school that afternoon, David was quite ready to proclaim or assent to a cordial _pax_. Naturally, if Bags did not want _pax_, he should have as much _bellum_ as he wished for, and during the prayer for Parliament, in which it was frankly impossible for a proper boy of thirteen to take any interest, David planned a raid or two. Bags was like a girl in some ways: he couldn’t stand creeping things, so if he didn’t want _pax_, he should find black-beetles in his bed without any more ado about the matter. These were easily procured; they lived in the water-pipes of a disused lavatory, and, by turning on a tap, horrible half-drowned specimens descended wriggling into the basin. He had put two in Bags’s bed once before, with the splendid effect that Bags spent the night on the floor in his dressing-gown, rather than encounter them, whereas, when he had tried the same trick on David, David had smashed the intruders to death with his slipper, and slept soundly amid the mutilated corpses. Yes, they should be about Bags’s path, and about his bed—particularly his bed—he should find them in his pockets and his boots, until he abandoned nagging warfare, and either came to blows and had done with it, or made peace like a gentleman. David had fought Bags once before, and Bags did not want any more on that occasion, and said so. David, as a matter of fact, did not want any more either, and his face for the next few days had been notably more lumpy than Bags’s, but, by virtue of an extra ounce of grit, he had not said so. Therefore—— “Amen” sang David fervently, looking as if he had just come down from an Italian picture of singing angels. But he forgot that the last “Amen” went down, instead of remaining on the same note.