"Look here," drawled Bertie; "as good be open about the matter. The class tell me they don't intend to let you occupy your place again: and if the Head Master insists that you should, there'll be a rebellion. But it's thought he won't insist in the face of things. I am not speaking for myself," he continued, idly running his fingers through his luxuriant curls with a cool indifference that might have been laughable but that it was so real, and so characteristic of him. "Being, as may be said, a remotely interested party, I hold myself neuter: I have neither counselled this, nor do I join in it. But I can't have a disturbance, you know. Brown, pass me that Homer." "Just disclose the meaning of this, will you?" cried George, speaking to the class collectively, "before I pull Brown major out of my place." "Tell him, some of you," drawled Bertie. For a moment there was silence: nobody seemed inclined to respond. Paradyne lifted his arm to begin aggression, when Brown major turned round; speaking however civilly. "There'd better be no row over this, Paradyne. If you flung me out of the place—which perhaps might turn out to be a bit of mistaken boasting, if we came to try it—another would fill it up. You ought never to have come among us, and that's a fact; there has been a feeling against you always, but it's only since a day or two that we've known the cause. If I were you, I'd go quietly out at that door and through the college gates, and have done with it for good. And upon my word and honour I say this for the best: it's the only thing left for you to do." "If you don't tell me the meaning of this, I'll fling you out, I say," repeated George. "I give you three seconds. One! two!——." "The meaning is, that you can't be tolerated here any longer," interrupted Brown. "Neither may you go in for the Orville." "That's not the _meaning_—that's the result. I ask you for the meaning—the reason—the cause. Are you stupid?" added George, stamping his foot. "Well—you know what your father was." "What was he?" Brown major hesitated. He was of a civil nature, and really did not like his task. To say to a college friend in his teens—your father was a swindler—or a forger—or a felon—is not pleasant. There was no time to lose, for the under-masters were coming in. "I don't know the rights of it as well as some of them, Paradyne," said Brown at length. "Of course I'm sorry for _you_; but we are gentlemen here. Ask Trace the particulars—or ask Lamb." Before another word could be spoken, the hall had to rise at the entrance of the Head Master. Instead of taking his seat when he reached his table, he remained standing, and addressed the first desk. "Gentlemen, in consequence of the absence of Mr. Henry this morning, the order of studies has been changed. You will go at once to Mr. Baker's room for mathematics."