“I say, Mulberry, you are a swell!” “We give you full marks for that, Mulberry!” “My dear young friends,” quoth Mulberry, “I knew Latin before any of you young devils knew the light.” “Draw it mild, Mulberry!” “I wish you’d give us a construe before second school!” Jan remembered all his days the stray strange picture of the debauched intruder in the middle of the sunlit quad, with the figures of young and wholesome life standing aloof from him in good-natured contempt, and more fresh faces at the ivy-mantled study windows. Jan happened to be standing nearest Mulberry, and to catch a bloodshot eye as it flickered over his audience in a comprehensive wink. “You bet I wasn’t always a groom,” said Mulberry; “an’ if I had ha’ been, there are worse places than the stables, ain’t there, young fellow?” Jan looked as though he only wished the ground would open and engulf him; and the look did not belie his momentary feeling. But he had a spirit more easily angered than abased, and the brown flush which swept him from collar to cap was not one of unmixed embarrassment. “How should I know?” he cried in a voice shrill with indignation. “He seems to know more about it than he’ll say,” observed Mulberry, and with another wink he fastened his red eyes on Jan, who had his cap pulled over his eyes as usual, and arms akimbo for the want of trousers pockets. “Just the cut of a jock!” added Mulberry, in quite a complimentary murmur. “You’re an ugly blackguard,” shouted Jan, “and I wonder anybody can stand and listen to you!” It was at this point that Heriot appeared very suddenly upon the scene, took the intruder by either shoulder, and had him out of the quad in about a second; in another Heriot rejoined the group in the sun, with a pale face and flashing spectacles. “You’re quite right,” he said sharply to Jan. “I wonder, too—at every one of you—at every one!” And he turned on his heel and was gone, leaving them stinging with his scorn; and Jan would have given a finger from his hand to have gone as well without more words; but he found himself hemmed in by clenched fists and furious faces, his back to the green iron palings under the study windows. “You saw Heriot coming!” “You said that to suck up to him!” “The beastly cheek, for a beastly new man!” “But we saw through it, and so did he!” “Trust old Heriot! You don’t find that sort o’ thing pay with _him_.” “I never saw him,” said Jan steadily, despite a thumping heart, “so you can say what you like.” And he took a heavy buffet from Shockley without wincing. “And why should you lose your wool with poor old Mulberry?” that worthy demanded with a fine show of charity. “One would think there was something in what he said.” “You fairly stink of the racing-stables,” said Buggins. “You know you do, you brute!” And Eyre _major_ led a laugh. “Racing-stables!” echoed Shockley. “There’s more of the stable-boy about him than the jock.” Jan folded his arms and listened stoically.