"I should guess that by the state of your face. Now, I don't want to know what the fight was about, though I dare say you'd like to tell me [Stephen was boiling to tell him]. You small boys have such peculiar reasons for fighting, you know, no one can understand them." "But this was because--" "Hush! Didn't I tell you I won't hear what it was about, sir!" said Mr Rastle, sharply. "Did you shake hands afterwards?" "No, I didn't, _and I won't_!" exclaimed Stephen, forgetting, in his indignation, to whom he was speaking. "Then," said Mr Rastle, quietly, "write me out one hundred lines of Caesar, Greenfield; and when you have recollected how to behave yourself, we will talk more about this. You can go." Mr Rastle _was_ a queer man; he never took things as one expected. When Stephen expected him to be furious he was as mild as a lamb. There was no making him out. But this was certain: Stephen left his room a good deal more crestfallen than he entered it. He had hoped to win Mr Rastle's sympathy and admiration by an account of his grievances, and, instead of that, he was sent off in disgrace, with an imposition for being rude, and feeling anything but a hero. Even the applause of his friends failed to console him quite. Besides, his head ached badly, and the bruise on his cheek, which he had scarcely felt among his other wounds, now began to swell and grow painful. Altogether, he was in the wars. He was groaning over his imposition late that evening in the class-room, feeling in dreadful dumps, and wishing he had never come to Saint Dominic's, when a hand laid on his shoulder made him start. He looked up and saw Mr Rastle. "Greenfield," said the master, kindly, "how much of your imposition have you done?" "Seventy lines, sir." "Hum! That will do this time. You had better get to bed." "Oh, sir!" exclaimed Stephen, moved far more by Mr Rastle's kind tone than by his letting him off thirty lines of the Caesar, "I'm so sorry I was rude to you." "Well, I was sorry, too; so we'll say no more about that. Why, what a crack you must have got on your cheek!" "Yes, sir; that was the ruler did that." "The ruler! Then it wasn't a fair fight? Now don't begin telling me all about it. I dare say you were very heroic, and stood up against terrible odds. But you've a very black eye and a very sore cheek now, so you had better get to bed as fast as you can." And certainly the pale, bruised, upturned face of the boy did not look very bright at that moment. Stephen Greenfield went off to bed that night in a perturbed state of mind and body. He had stuck loyally to his promise not to fag, and he had earned the universal admiration of his comrades. But, on the other hand, he had been awfully knocked about, and, almost as bad, he had been effectively snubbed by Mr Rastle. He did not exactly know what to think of it all. Had he done a fine deed or a foolish one? and what ought he to do to-morrow?