"And I can tell you at once, and before all these fellows," said Yorke, rising hotly, and interrupting, "that we won't have you! And that brings me to the other business--and that's about Rollitt. We can't bury the hatchet so easily, as far as he is concerned. For he is still absent, and no one knows what has become of him. I'm not going to say a word to make little of Fisher's major's mistake. It was bad enough, in all conscience, for Rollitt. But it was only a mistake. But what do you fellows say of the cad who deliberately gets up a story about him; and, even when he finds out there is not a shadow of truth in it, repeats it in a worse form than before? There are some here who believed the first report and joined in the suspicions. That was hardly to be wondered at. But every one of them had the decency, as soon as the money was found, to admit that they had been wrong, and to regret their unfair suspicion of a Fellsgarth fellow. All but one--this cad here! Only last night, you fellows, he wrote the letter I hold in my hand. I mean to read it to you, and I hope you won't forget it in a hurry." "You shan't read it; it wasn't to you!" said Dangle, making a rush at the paper; "give it back!" "You shall have it back," said Yorke in a warmer temper than any one had seen him in before, "when I've read it. Stop, and listen to it. It'll do you good." "Read away!" sneered Dangle, giving up the contest. "It's the truth." Yorke read, and as he proceeded, shame and anger rose to boiling-point in the audience, so that towards the end the reader's voice was almost drowned in the hisses. "There," said the captain, crumpling up the paper in his hand and flinging it at the writer's feet, "there's your letter; and until you apologise to the whole school you have insulted, you needn't expect we'll bury the hatchet!" Dangle scowled round and tried to swagger. "Is that all the business?" he sneered. "No!" shouted some voices. "He ought to be kicked." "Wait a bit," cried Wally, excitedly, standing on a form, "there's Rollitt's governor just come. Some of our chaps have gone to fetch him. He'll--" Here the door opened, and, escorted by half a dozen of the juniors, Mr Rollitt, looking more bewildered than ever, walked in. He looked apologetically from one side to the other, saying, "Thank'ee kindly," and "No offence, young gents," until he found himself at the end of the Hall among the prefects. Then Yorke got up again, still hot with temper, and a dead silence ensued. Dangle smiled at first. But his face gradually blanched as he looked round and found his retreat cut off, and guessed what was coming.