It was therefore with no slight hesitation that Mr. Selby sought a favourable opportunity of referring to the subject of the Sunday boxing in Mr. Brandiston’s house. He approached it from the side of Gerald Eversley’s unhappiness. Mr. Brandiston had not noticed that he was unhappy; but he said that some boys would be unhappy anywhere. When he found that Mr. Selby was leading up to a subject which was naturally distasteful to him as a house-master, he interrupted him, saying, ‘I tell you what it is, Selby. When you have been a schoolmaster as long as I have, you will think twice before you begin trying to set other masters’ houses in order.’ Still he listened to Mr. Selby’s burning words. It was repugnant to his sense of justice that a boy in his house should be left to labour under wholly unmerited suspicion. He admitted at once that Gerald Eversley had not been the source of his information. As being a man of experience, he did not reveal what the source of his information had been. But he gave Mr. Selby to understand that, if he would leave the matter alone, it should be set right. Mr. Selby was more than content. So long as Gerald Eversley was delivered from unpopularity, he cared not who might enjoy the credit of the deliverance. That same night Mr. Brandiston summoned the head boy of his house into his study. ‘Powis,’ he said, when the door was shut, ‘I hear there is an impression in the house that it was Eversley who told me about the boxing on Sunday.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ answered Powis. ‘I believe the boys do think so.’ ‘Has anything been done to him by the Sixth Form?’ asked Mr. Brandiston. ‘No, sir,’ said Powis, ‘not by the Sixth Form, but I heard one or two fellows talking against him, and I am afraid he has had rather a bad time of it.’ ‘Well, then,’ continued Mr. Brandiston, ‘I should like you to know and to let it be known in the house that he had nothing whatever to do with it.’ ‘Certainly, sir,’ said Powis. ‘I am very glad. I don’t think the boys would have been so hard on him, only he is such a queer fellow, they can’t make him out.’ ‘Nor can anybody else, I think, Powis,’ Mr. Brandiston replied. ‘But it would not be creditable to the house to victimise an innocent boy.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Powis, and he went away. News travels swiftly in a boarding house; and before the lights went out that night it was known to every one of Mr. Brandiston’s boys that Gerald Eversley was not the ‘sneak’ who had revealed the Sunday boxing to Mr. Brandiston. One or two of the baser spirits, such as Tracy, muttered that his innocence had not been conclusively established, forgetting that the suspicion of his guilt had not been established at all. But for the house generally the acquittal pronounced by the Sixth Form to whom Powis had reported Mr. Brandiston’s words, was sufficient. As Harry Venniker was undressing that night, he said, ‘Eversley.’ Gerald looked up.