It was all very well to keep a stiff upper lip when the other boys were looking on, but when Snap and Towzer got up to their dormitories they began to give way to very gloomy thoughts indeed. Snap Hales especially had a bad time of it with his own thoughts. It did not matter so much for young Winthrop. His mother was a rich woman and an indulgent one. His expulsion would grieve her, but he would coax her to forgive him in less than no time, he knew. It was very different for Snap. He had no mother, nor any relative but a guardian, who was as strict as a Pharisee, and too poor himself to help Snap, even if he had had the will to, which he had not. Over and over again Snap had been told that his whole future depended on his school career, and it appeared to him that that career was about to come to a speedy and by no means honourable end. But that was not all. Snap's greatest friend on earth was his school-chum's mother. Mrs. Winthrop had always been almost a mother to Snap, and had won the boy's heart by the confidence she showed in him. Snap didn't like being expelled; he didn't like Towzer being expelled; but still less did he like the prospect of being told that he, Snap Hales, had led the young one into mischief. And yet that was what was before him. Snap was sitting on the edge of his bed, half undressed, and meditating somewhat in this miserable fashion, when a bolster caught him full in the face. Looking up quickly, he caught sight of a face he knew grinning at him over his partition. It was one of B. dormitory. B. had had the impertinence to attack F. That bolster was the gage of battle. Silently Snap slipped out, bolster in hand. Someone had relit the gas and turned it up as high as he dared. Round and under it were ten or a dozen white-robed figures, armed with what had once been pillows, but now resembled nothing so much as thick ropes with a huge knot at the end. A week ago Snap had crept into B. dormitory and driven a block of yellow soap well home into the open mouth of the captain of B. That hero's snores had ceased, but he had sworn vengeance as soon as he was able to swear anything. This then was B.'s vengeance, and the blows of the contending parties fell like hail. At first, respect for their master's beauty-sleep kept them quiet, and they fought grimly and quietly like rats in a corner. Gradually, though, their spirits rose, and the noise of battle increased. 'Go it, Snap, bash his head in,' cried one. 'Let him have it in the wind,' retorted another, and all the while even the speakers were fighting for dear life.