Tony flopped down on a couch with an air of exhaustion. “Oh, so, so. I found him greasing on his confounded Virgil in a blue funk for fear I’d come to haze him. I made him read me twenty-five lines to give him a chance to recover himself, while I looked to see if I could find a redeeming feature. But Nature left that out. After a while I began firing questions at him, and when he gradually grew accustomed to the idea that I was only trying to be decent, he thawed a bit, and told me a little about himself. He’s had a tough time generally since he had the misfortune to come into the world at all. His father, who was an old college chum of the Doctor’s, seems to have turned out a sort of a rotter. He did something or other that disgraced them, and then he died and left that kid and his mother to face the music alone. She, poor woman, didn’t last long, and then the Head stepped in, for old time’s sake, and out of mistaken kindness of his stupid old heart brought Finch here.... All the spirit has been kicked out of him. He’ll do at his books—he read the Virgil pretty well—but he hasn’t the spunk to resent being kicked by a First Former. He seems to live in a perpetual terror of his own shadow. I suspect Ducky Thornton and his gang have been ragging him on the quiet, and if I catch that fat loafer at it, I promise you he’ll be sorry. I think I’ll give him a good kicking to-morrow on general principles.” “Do!” said Reggie, “that will be good for him in any case.... It might be well for you both to keep an eye on Ducky’s whereabouts in the afternoons. I have a notion that he skulks in the fives court till the master of the day is out of the way, and then sneaks back into the house. I have seen him half-a-dozen times inside, and if I had been a prefect I should have kicked him out myself.” “Oh, hang being a prefect where kicking Ducky is concerned. To do that would be good for both our souls.” Carroll laughed. “Well, at it, boy.” He said good-night then, and left them.