"The Bull" smiled. He was too big a man to be taken in by such obvious hypocrisy. These men amused him greatly, especially because they both thought he took them seriously. But, for all that, he saw that there was a good deal of truth in what they had said. He wished he had been at the game himself. It was so hard to form an estimate on the strength of partial onlookers. Princeford's refereeing might have been exasperating; but, damn it, even if it had, a sportsman should not make a fuss about it! It was all part of the game. But Caruthers did not treat a House match as a game, but as the real business of life. That was what rankled. Caruthers would laugh when he dropped a catch in a Colts match, or missed his collar on the upper; but in a House match his face would be set, his eyes wide and eager. Humour had for the moment ceased to exist, as far as he was concerned. He clearly preferred his house to his school. Was he stirring up any feeling between the outhouses and the School House? He remembered an occasion terms back when Gordon in a House game had shouted out: "Let the swine have it." Then, again, there was that affair of bribing Burgoyne to lay out one of his men. And then the incident this afternoon. Outwardly he was doing his very best to separate the interests of his house from those of the school, to split Fernhurst into two factions. But supposing, after all, these were merely outward signs, supposing Gordon's excessive keenness, coupled with the rash hotheadedness of youth, led him where his cooler judgment would have checked him. If that were so, and if strong measures were taken, might not his keenness change into a hatred of Fernhurst, might it not lead him to open antagonism with the rest of the school? Punishment might merely inflame and not crush him, while if his feelings were only the natural effervescence of youth, they would wear down in time, and then all would be well. Yet he realised that it is the things which show that count in this world, a man is judged not by what he is, but by what he appears to be. Everything pointed to the belief that Gordon was working against the interests of Fernhurst; whether he actually meant to do so or not was immaterial. He had to be dealt with as if it was deliberate. It might be hard on him, but it was not the interests of the individual, but of the community, that had to be considered. "The Bull" sent for Akerman, the school captain, after chapel on Sunday morning.