'I don't care what the fellows call me, so long as they let me alone,' said the young giant, still with his hands in his pockets. He was getting tired of the discussion, and Taylor saw that it was of little use trying to threaten Leonard, and so he walked sulkily away, to try and think out some other means of getting rid of the obnoxious scholarship boy. CHAPTER III. THE COCK OF THE WALK. 'I say, Duffy, there's an awful row among the fellows at school; Taylor and Curtis are like raging bulls over this new fellow, and they say it's all the pater's fault.' The brother and sister were sitting at their lessons in the little room known as the study, as they sat when this story opened. Several weeks, however, had elapsed since that time, and Florence, having her own cares and interests to think of, had well-nigh forgotten how she had been appealed to in the matter of the new boy. 'What are you talking about, Len?' she asked, after a pause, during which she had been muttering over a French verb, with her hand covering the page, by way of testing whether she knew her lesson. 'That's like a girl!' answered her brother tartly. 'I have told you more than once or twice about that new boy at Torrington's, and now you ask me what I am talking about.' 'Oh, well, I didn't know he was so interesting as all that. You told me a week or two ago that you had sent him to Coventry and settled him, and so of course I thought it was all over,' said the young lady, propping her chin in her hands and looking across at her brother. 'But if a fellow won't be settled, what are you to do? I want you to tell me that, Duffy.' The young lady shook her head. 'Tell us all about it, Len, I'm not very busy to-night.' 'Well, we sent that fellow to Coventry, as I told you--not that he's a bad sort of chap; only he came from one of those beastly board schools in the town, and we didn't know who he was or what he was, and he kept his mouth shut about his people, and so the fellows took up the notion that Torrington's would soon go to the dogs if we let that sort of cattle stay there, and so we said he must go. Well, we thought the Coventry game had done the trick for us just at first, for you never saw such an awful ass as he made of himself one morning at all the classes. "Howard, are you ill?" said Skeats at last, in his sharp way. And we thought the beggar would get off for the rest of the lessons. But, if you'll believe it, he was game enough to say, "No, sir, I'm quite well," which was as good as telling Skeats he was a fool for asking such a question.' Florence nodded. 'I like plucky boys,' she said approvingly. 'Well, it was a plucky thing to do, I daresay, but it didn't help him much with Skeats that day, for he never spared him a bit, as he did not take the excuse that had been offered him, and he blundered and floundered worse than ever, so that Curtis, the biggest dunce in the class, answered for him, and took his place in the class.'