"Quite right, Saint George; he's beneath your notice." Tracy ran his hand through his scented hair, as if he rather Implied that he was; and being mortified at the contrast between his own credulous vanity and Walter's manly simplicity, and anxious if possible to regain his position, he said angrily to Walter, "What are you looking at me for?" Not wishing to be rude, Walter turned away, while someone observed, "A cat may look at a king." "Ay, a cat at a king, I grant you," answered Henderson; "but not a mere son of Eve at any Howard Tracy." "You are laughing at me," said Tracy to Walter again, in a still angrier tone, seeing Walter smile at Henderson's remark. "I've not the slightest wish to laugh at you," said Walter. "Yes he has. Shy this at him," said Jones, putting a great bit of orange peel into Tracy's hand. Tracy threw it at Walter, and he without hesitation picked it up, and flung it back in Tracy's face. "A fight! a fight!" shouted the mischief-making group, as Tracy made a blind blow at Walter, which his antagonist easily parried. "Make him fight you. Challenge him," said Jones. "Invite him to the milling-ground behind the chapel after first school to-morrow morning." "Pistols for _two_, coffee for four, at eight to-morrow," said Henderson. "Trample on the Dragon's tail, someone, and rouse him to the occasion. What! he won't come to the scratch? Alack! alack! "`What can ennoble fools or cowards Not all the blood of all the Tracys, Dragons, and Howards!'" He continued mischievously, as he saw that Tracy, on taking note of Walter's compact figure, showed signs of declining the combat. "Hush, Henderson," said Kenrick, one of the group who had taken no part in the talk; "it's a shame to be setting two new fellows fighting their first evening." But Henderson's last remark had been too much for Tracy. "Will you fight?" he said, walking up to Walter with reddening cheeks. For Tracy had been to school before, and was no novice in the ways of boys. "Certainly not," said Walter coolly, to everybody's great surprise. "What! the other chap showing the white feather, too. _All_ the new fellows are cowards it seems this time," said Jones. "This'll never do. Pitch into him, Tracy." "Stop," said Kenrick; "let's hear first why he won't fight?" "Because I see no occasion to," said Walter; "and because, in the second place, I never could fight in cold blood; and because, in the third place--" "Well, what in the third place?" said Kenrick, interested to observe Walter's hesitation. "In the third place," said Walter, "I don't say it from conceit--but that boy's no match for me."