"Fancy! we've got up the school so much faster than we used to expect." "Yes; but I wish we could change places, and you be head and I sixth monitor as you are. You'll help me, Walter, won't you?" "You don't doubt that, Rex, I'm sure; _all_ the help _I_ can give is yours." "If it weren't for that, I think I would have left, Walter. I don't think, somehow, I've influence enough for head. I'm not swell enough at the games." "You play though now, and enjoy them; and I don't half believe you, Rex, when you talked of having wished to leave. That would have been cowardice, you know, and you're not the boy to leave your post." "Here I am then in my place, armour on, visor down, determined not to fly, like the Roman soldier whose skeleton was found in the sentry box at Pompeii," said Power, playfully getting up and assuming a military attitude. "And here am I," said Walter, laughing, as he stood beside him with one foot advanced--"I, your sixth Hyperaspistes." "The sixth!--the _first_ you mean," said Power. "The four monitors, between you and me, won't, I fear, help us much. Browne is very short-sighted, and always shutting up with a headache; Smythe is a mere book-worm, and a regular butt even among the little fellows--worse than useless--no dignity or anything else; Kenrick (for Kenrick had so far kept the advantage of his original start that, much as he had fallen off in work, Walter had not yet got above him)--well, you know what Ken is!" "Yes, I know what Ken is now--_Hespemor en phthimenoir_--he's our chief danger--a doubtful general in the camp. Hullo, Flip, _you_ here?" said he, as Henderson came up and joined them. "Myself, O Evides; who's the doubtful general in the camp?--not I, I hope." "You, Flip? no; but Kenrick. We're talking about the monitors." "A doubtful general!--a traitor, you mean, an enemy, a spy," said Henderson, hotly. "There, now, don't stop me, Power; abuse is a good safety-valve; the scream of the steam-engine letting off superfluous vapour. I should dislike him far worse if I bottled up against him a silent spite, hated him in the dark, and didn't openly abuse him sometimes." Power's large and gentle mind, and Walter's generous temper prevented them from joining in Henderson's strong language; but they felt no less than he did that, if they were to work for the good of the school, Kenrick would be their most dangerous, though not their declared, opponent. A monitor who seemed to recognise none of a monitor's duties, who openly broke rules and defied discipline, who smoked and went to public-houses, and habitually associated with inferiors, and those the least creditable set in the school, did more to damage the authority of the upper boys than _any_ number of external assaults on them if they were consistent and united among themselves. "I foresee storms ahead," said Power, with a sigh. "Flip, you must stand by me as well as Walter."