Akerman rose. He began to read a speech off a piece of school paper. Gordon had wondered why he had been so very energetic in taking down notes during the Chief's divinity lecture that morning. The speech went on. It was full of the inevitable platitudes about _esprit de corps_ and a sportsmanlike spirit. Now and then Akerman stumbled, and had some difficulty in reading his own writing. If there had not hung over him the prospect of a very severe beating, Gordon would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. Akerman was so pricelessly absurd. The rest looked painfully self-conscious. Why could not Akerman have learnt his speech? It was so bad that he could not imagine anyone having any difficulty in making it up as he went along. Akerman was afraid of expressing an opinion. He prefaced every remark with "Mr Buller says." It gave a sense of security. The speech ended; everyone except Gordon was relieved. "Bend over there." The beating was not so horrible an ordeal as he had expected. In the same spirit in which the outhouse captains had raised no objection, merely because they did not care in the least what happened to Gordon, so now they did not take any particular trouble to hurt him. The ordeal was rather a fiasco. A halting oration had led to an even tamer execution. As Gordon walked down the library steps he was painfully aware of having been the principal character in a scene of sustained bathos. The body that represented Fernhurst football had scarcely risen to the dignity of its trust. * * * * * And then a sudden wave of feeling swept over him; and he saw the horrible unfairness of the whole thing. It did not matter that Akerman had made himself utterly ludicrous, or that the rest of the Games Committee had been led to carry out a programme which they knew to be hypocritical. It was the spirit that mattered. And at the back of it all moved "the Bull" pulling the strings. In front of the School House porch, clearly, dispassionately, Gordon put his case.