“Oh, don’t be tedious,” said David. “He can’t get it himself, because he hasn’t got any clothes on, and is afraid of shocking you, and he wants it because he has got a bruise, which you can see if you aren’t afraid of being shocked. Anything else I can tell you?” Muffled laughter sounded from various directions as Glanders sniffed, which was her congenital way of acknowledging the legality of doubtful proceedings, and David finished his search, turning over the pillows of Bags’s bed without further hindrance. But there was no Monarch to be found, and he had to go back to the bath-room to report that he could find no liniment and had lost his challenge. This was depressing, because the beloved Monarch was still missing, also his wife, the hope of the race, and because the loss of the challenge meant three nasty cuts from Bags and his racquet-handle. And the Head was going to let fly at him first, and there was the missionary-map to be made, and the whole blackness of this dreadful Monday morning, dissipated for the moment by his certainty that he would find the Monarch, overcast the sky again. On his way back he passed his cubicle, and, pausing to throw his sponge and towel down, his eye fell on his bed, and there on the blanket were two black blots of familiar shape. David gave a great sigh. “Oh Monarch and missus,” he said affectionately, “you little devils.” The travelling-carriage of the royalties was to hand, and in a moment the black pair were safe again. How they had got on to his blanket he did not pause to think, and the three cuts due to him were “jolly cheap at the price.” He made but a couple of leaps down the stairs to the bath-room. “I say, I’ve lost the challenge, Bags,” he said; “but I’ve found the Monarch. He was on my blankets, and so was she. And—I say, I’m sorry I suspected you. When’ll you take your cuts?” Bags’s inconvenient conscience and affection gave him a nasty prod at this. If David had only not said he was sorry he suspected him, he would not have felt so “beastly.” On the other hand, it was dangerous to try to stifle his internal beastliness by magnanimity, since this might lead to fresh suspicions on David’s part. But magnanimity salted with sarcasm might serve his turn. “Oh, I don’t want to whack you,” he said, “as you say you were sorry. As if I should have touched your filthy stags! Clip their wings, and take them to Marchester next half, and see if Hughes is proud of his pal who keeps vermin.” David stared in blank surprise. To forgo the pleasure of chastisement was not in the spirit of Shylock. “Oh, well, thanks awfully,” he said. “If you don’t want to take your cuts, I’m sure I don’t mind not getting them. But why don’t you?” Bags was struggling into his shirt, and speech was for the moment extinguished. “Simply because the challenge was too silly for words,” he said, as his head emerged.