“Actually on the floor!” said Mrs. Dormer, still in Siberia. “Yes, actually on the floor—also all the breakfast things and coffee all over the tablecloth.” Miss Madder was checked in her enthusiasm by her consciousness of the cold eye of Mrs. Thompson, and the possibility of being dismissed from her position at the end of the term if she said anything she oughtn't to—also the possibility of an unpleasant conversation with her clever sister afterwards. However, she considered it safe enough to offer it as her opinion that both gentlemen had forgotten themselves, and that Mr. Traill was very much younger than Mr. Perrin, although Mr. Perrin was the harder one to live with—and that it had been a clean tablecloth that morning. “I call it disgraceful,” was the only light that the younger Miss Madder would throw upon the question. For a moment there was silence, and then Mrs. Dormer said, “And really about an umbrella?” “I understand,” said Miss Madder, who was warming to her work and beginning to forget Mrs. Thompson's eye, “that Mr. Traill borrowed Mr. Perrin's umbrella without asking permission, and that there was a dispute.” But it was at once obvious that what interested the ladies was the question of Miss Desart's engagement to Mr. Traill, and the effect that that had upon the disturbance in question. “I never quite liked Mr. Traill,” said Mrs. Dormer decisively; “and I cannot say that I altogether congratulate Miss Desart—and I must say that the quarrel of this morning looks a little as though Mr. Traill's temper was uncertain.” “Very uncertain indeed, I should think,” said the younger Miss Madder with a sniff. Mrs. Comber felt their eyes upon her; she knew that they wished to know what she had to say about it all, but she was wise enough to hold her peace. The other ladies then devoted all their energies upon getting an opinion from Mrs. Comber. During the next quarter of an hour, every lady understanding every other lady, a combined attack was made. Semi-Chorus a—The question of the umbrella was, of course, a question of order, and, as Mrs. Dormer put it, when a younger master attacks an older one and flings him to the ground, and rubs his hair in the dust and that before a large audience, the whole system of education is in danger; there 's no knowing when things will begin or end, and other masters will be doing dreadful things, and then the prefects, and then other boys, and finally a dreadful picture of the First and Second boys showing what they can do with knives and pistols. Miss Madder entirely agreed with this, and then enlarged further on the question of property.