'Oh, the school be bothered!' said Warren. 'Of course a fellow has to do the same as the rest when he is at school, but "the cock of the walk" is going a bit too far this time, and I mean to let the whole lot see that I won't follow the lead, when I don't think it's fair and square. If they had any good reason for sending you to Coventry, I'd see you hanged before I'd try to take your part; but I like fair play, and it is not a fair game they are playing against you now.' 'But suppose they send you to Coventry as well?' said Horace. 'Oh, they will, you bet. Taylor and Curtis and that crowd are sure to do it, and I dare say they will rage like a bull in a china shop. Come on here. They see we are going in arm-in-arm.' A storm of hisses greeted their appearance at the school gate, and Horace changed colour and his arm shook; but Warren gripped him the tighter, so that he could not get away. 'Is it worth while sticking to me if the rest don't like it?' whispered Horace. 'Is anything worth fighting for as those old Englishmen fought in the Civil War--Hampden and that lot?' Warren's face was flaming, and he held his head high, as he led Horace through the hooting crowd of boys, while he asked this question loud enough for any of them to hear. Horace did not answer. He almost wished Warren would leave him alone. But this was not that gentleman's way. 'I tell you what it is, Howard,' he said, when they had reached the comparative shelter of the playground, where the hooting had to cease, for fear the master should insist upon knowing what it was about. 'I have been thinking a lot of what we were talking about last night, and it's my opinion that there would not be so many tyrants in the world if they did not find easy victims. You knuckled under to "the cock of the walk" at the first touch, when you ought to have said, "Now, what do you mean by sending me to Coventry? What rule of the school have I broken?"' 'Ah, but you know we are not rich people. I am only a scholarship boy, and come from a board school.' 'As if I didn't know that. As if my pater has not told me a dozen times lately that he wishes he had sent me to a board school when I was young. Bless you, we are not rich. My father is only a doctor, like Morrison's, and there are swarms and swarms of children in the nursery, so you may know we haven't got money to roll in, like Curtis. No, old fellow, we are two poor boys, and so we'll just stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight the lot, if they want to fight us. Now mind, you've got to fight for me, and I'll fight for you; and we'll let 'em see what two can do, if nobody else joins us. Little Morrison will, though I think Taylor has led him a dog's life lately; and so I should think he would be glad enough to cut that shop, and join Howard and Co.'