The wish to show some spirit in his turn, the envious admiration for a quality of which he daily felt the want, both part and parcel of one young nature, like the romantic outlook upon school life, were equally foreign and incomprehensible to the other. Jan could only see Carpenter floundering to the rescue, with his big head and his little wrists; and the vision made him laugh, though not unkindly. “You _would_ have been a fool,” he said. “I wish I had been!” “Then you must be as big a one as I was.” “But you weren’t, Rutter! That’s just it. You don’t know!” “I know I was fool enough to lose my wool, as they call it.” “You mean man enough! I believe the chaps respect a chap who lets out without thinking twice about it,” said Carpenter, treading on a truth unawares. “I should always be frightened of being laughed at all the more,” he added, with one of his inward glances and the sigh it fetched. “But you’ve done better than you think. The fellows at the bottom of the house won’t hustle _you_. I heard Petrie telling them he’d never had his head smacked so hard in his life!” Jan broke into smiles. “I did catch him a warm 'un,” he said. “I wish you’d been there.” “I only wish it had been one of the big brutes,” said Chips, conceiving a Goliath in his thirst for the ideal. “I don’t,” said Jan. “He was trading on them being there, and by gum he was right! But they didn’t prevent me from catching him a warm 'un!” And in his satisfaction the epithet almost rhymed with _harm_. Nevertheless, Jan looked another and a brighter being as he stood up and asked Carpenter what his collar was like. Carpenter had to tell him it was not fit to be seen. Jan wondered where he could find the matron to give him a clean one. “Her room’s at the top of the house near your dormitory. I daresay she’d be there.” “I suppose I’d better go and see. Come on!” “Shall we go down to the Upper together?” Chips asked as they reached the quad. “I don’t mind.” “Then I’ll wait, if you won’t be long.” And the boy in the quad thought the other had quite forgotten his mad idea of cutting call-over—which was not far from the truth—and that he had not meant it for a moment—which was as far from the truth as it could be. But even Carpenter hardly realised that it was he who had put Rutter on better terms with himself, and in saner humour altogether, by the least conscious and least intentional of all his arguments. Jan meanwhile was being informed upstairs that he was not supposed to go to his dormitory in daytime, but that since he was there he had better have a comfortable wash as well as a clean collar. So he came down looking perhaps smarter and better set-up than at any moment since his arrival. And at the foot of the stairs the hall door stood open, showing a boy or two within looking over the new illustrated papers; and one of the boys was young Petrie.