“Oh, _no_, Padre, Sahib. We were only billin’ an’ cooin’ a bit,” Stalky explained. “We haven’t really begun. There’s goin’ to be a tug-o’-war next Saturday with Miss Meadow’s bed-cord----” “‘Which in dem days would ha’ hilt a mule,’” the Reverend John quoted. “Well, I’ve got to be impartial. I wish you both good luck.” The week, with its three paper-chases, passed uneventfully, but for a certain amount of raiding and reprisals on new lines that might have warned them they were playing with fire. The Juniors had learned to use the sacred war-chants as signals of distress; oppressed Ingles squealing for aid against oppressing Tungles, and _vice versa_; so that one never knew when a peaceful form-room would flare up in song and slaughter. But not a soul dreamed, for a moment, that that Saturday’s jape would develop into--what it did! They were rigidly punctilious about the ritual; exquisitely careful as to the weights on Miss Meadow’s bed-cord, kindly lent by Richards, who said he knew nothing about mules, but guaranteed it would hold a barge’s crew; and if Dick Four chose to caparison himself as Archimandrite of Joppa, black as burned cork could make him, why, Stalky, in a nightgown kilted up beneath his sweater, was equally the Pope Symmachus, just converted from heathendom but given to alarming relapses. It began after tea--say 6.50 P. M. It got into its stride by 7.30 when Turkey, with pillows bound round the ends of forms, invented the Royal Battering-Ram Corps. It grew and--it grew till a quarter to nine when the Prefects, most of whom had fought on one side or the other, thought it time to stop and went in with ground-ashes and the bare hand for ten minutes.... Honours for the action were not awarded by the Head till Monday morning when he dealt out one dozen lickings to selected seniors, eight “millies” (one thousand), fourteen “usuals” (five hundred lines), minor impositions past count, and a stoppage of pocket-money on a scale and for a length of time unprecedented in modern history.