After the day's excitement Fellsgarth went to bed early. But no one dreamed, least of all the heroes of the exploit themselves, how much was to depend during the coming months on those five small voters who had waited patiently in Wally Wheatfield's study that afternoon to hear the clock strike 5:30. CHAPTER FIVE. PERCY WHEATFIELD, ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY. The misgivings of the Classics were justified. The Moderns did not accept their victory at Elections with a meekness which augured harmony for the coming half. On the contrary, they executed that difficult acrobatic feat known as going off their heads, with jubilation. For many terms they had groaned under a sense of inferiority, partly imagined but partly well founded, in their relations with the rival side. The Classics had given themselves airs, and, what was worse, proved their right to give them. In its early days the Modern side was not "in it" at Fellsgarth. Its few members were taught to look upon themselves as altogether a lower order of creation than the pupils of the old foundation, and had accepted the position with due humility. Then certain rebellious spirits had arisen, who dared to ask why their side wasn't as good as any other? The answer was crushing. "What can you do? Only French, and book-keeping and `stinks'"--(the strictly Classical nickname for chemistry). "You can't put a man into the cricket or football field worth his salt; your houses are rowdy; your men do nothing at the University; two out of three of you are not even gentlemen." Whereupon the Moderns went in desperately for sports, and claimed to be represented in the School clubs. They maintained that they were as good gentlemen as any who talked Latin and Greek; and to prove it they jingled their money in their trouser-pockets, and asked what the Classics could do in that line. The Classics could do very little, and fell back on their moral advantages. By degrees the new side grew in numbers, and made themselves heard rather more definitely. They put into the field one or two men who could not honestly be denied a place in the School teams; and they began to figure also among the School prefects. The present seniors, Clapperton and his friends, carried the thing a step further, and insisted on equal rights with their rivals in all the School institutions. To their surprise they found an ally in Yorke, who, as we have already said, hurt the feelings of many of his admirers by his Quixotic insistence on fair play all round. The proceedings yesterday had been the most recent instance of the flow in the tide of Modern progress at Fellsgarth. Reinforced by an unusual influx of new boys, they had aimed at, and succeeded in winning, their level half of the control of the School clubs; and Yorke had looked on and let them do it! No wonder they went off their heads as they discoursed on their triumph, and no wonder they already pictured themselves masters of Fellsgarth!