To Brinkman's demand (almost the first voice he had heard speaking to him for a week) he returned a curt refusal. "Well, I'll make you come," said Brinkman. Whereupon Corder retreated behind his table and invited the interloper to begin. To dodge round and round a study table after a nimble boy is not a very dignified operation for a prefect, particularly when the object of his chase is a prefect too; and Brinkman presently abandoned the quest and went off, breathing threatenings and slaughter, for reinforcements. So did Corder. Less sensitive than his junior fellow-martyrs, he marched straight across to Yorke's study. The captain was away, but in the adjoining room he found Fisher major and Denton, poring over their endless accounts. "You two," said Corder, "you're prefects. You're wanted over on the other side to stop bullying." "Who's being bullied?" "I am. I've been cut dead for a week. I'm sick of it. Now they're going to lick me. I'd take my chance against them one at a time, but I can't tackle three of them." "Is it for playing in the match?" "Yes, that and going to the meeting. Nothing else. I'd go to twenty a day, if I had the chance, to spite them." "Who are bullying you?" "Clapperton, Brinkman, and Dangle, of course." "I tell you what," said Denton, "we couldn't go over. We've no authority. But there's nothing to prevent you staying here and letting them fetch you. Then we can interfere." "All serene," said Corder; "I hope they will come. I say, I wish you'd let me wait here and hear you fellows talk. I've not had a word spoken to me for a week. I can tell you it's no joke. I laughed at it at first, and thought it would be nice rather than otherwise. But after two days, you chaps, it gets to be decidedly slow; you begin to wonder if it isn't worth caving in. But that would be _such_ a howling come down, when all you've done is to do what you had a right to do--or rather what you're bound to do--play up for the School." "And jolly well you played too," said Usher. "It was a lucky turn. You know I was so awfully glad to be in the fifteen, and felt I could do anything. Of course the lucky thing was my getting past their forwards, and then--" And then Corder bunched into a delighted account of the never-to-be-forgotten match, during which the cloud passed away from his face, the light came back to his eyes, and the spirit into his voice. "What business have they to stop me," said he, "or bully me for it?" "None. And Yorke, when he hears of it, will report it to the doctor." "No, don't let him do that. What's the use? If I can stay here it's all right." An hour later, about the time that the young mountaineers were beginning to look out for their second wind on the lower slope, Dangle came across in a vicious temper. He had not come to look for Corder, the sight of whom in the sanctuary of a Classic study took him aback. "That's where you're sneaking, is it?" said he. "I'm not surprised."