But there were other things that upset the chumming of Bray and Corkey minimus before the Milly row, and they ought to be taken in turn. First, there was the Old Testament prize, which was the only thing Bray had the ghost of a chance of getting. But Corkey beat him by twenty-three marks; and Bray said afterwards that Corkey had cribbed a lot of stuff about Joshua, and Corkey said he hadn’t, and even declared he knew as much about Joshua as Bray, and a bit over. Then, on top of that, came the match with neckties, which was rather a rum match in its way. Both of them used to be awfully swagger about their neckties, and each fancied his own. So one bet the other half a crown he would wear a different necktie every day for a month. The month being June, that meant thirty different neckties each, and the chap who wore the best neckties would win. A fellow called Fowle was judge, being the son of an artist; and neither Bray nor Corkey was allowed to buy a single new tie or add to the stock he had in his box. At the end of a fortnight they stood about equal, though Corkey’s ties were rather more artistic than Bray’s, which were chiefly yellow and spotted. But then came an awful falling away, and some of the affairs they wore were simply weird. The test for these was if the tie passed in class. Then the terms of the match were altered, and they decided to go on wearing different things till one or other was stopped by a master. Any concern not noticed was considered a necktie “in the ordinary acceptation of that term,” as Fowle put it. At the end of the third week Corkey minimus came out in an umbrella cover done in a sailor’s knot, but nobody worth mentioning spotted it; and the next day Bray wore a bit of blue ribbon off a chocolate box, which also passed. They struggled on this sort of way till Bray got bowled over. I think Corkey was wearing a yard-measure dipped in red ink that morning, but it looked rather swagger than not. Class was just ended, when old Briggs, of all people--a man who wore two pairs of spectacles at one time very often--said to Bray: “What is that round your neck, boy?” And Bray said: “My tie, sir.” Then Briggs said: “Is it, sir? Let me see it, please. I have noticed an increasing disorder about your neck arrangements for a week past. You insult me and you insult the class by appearing here in these ridiculous ties.” “It sha’n’t happen again, sir,” said Bray, trying to edge out of the class-room. “No, Bray, it shall not,” said old Briggs. “Bring me that thing at once, please.” Bray handed it up, and Briggs examined it as if it was a botanical specimen or something. “This,” he announced, “is not a necktie at all. You’re wearing a piece of Brussels carpet, wretched boy--a fragment of the new carpet laid down yesterday in the Doctor’s study. You will kindly take it to him immediately, say who sent you, and state the purpose to which you were putting it.”