There was laughter in No. 16 Study that evening. A few weeks ago Gordon would have been horrified at such a thing; but now it seemed a splendid jest. He would not have cribbed himself. He preferred to beat a man with his own brains, though Mansell would have protested that it was a greater effort to pit one's brains against a master long trained in spotting tricks than against some dull-headed scholar. The Public School system, at any rate, teaches its sons the art of framing very ingenious theories with which to defend their faults; a negative virtue, perhaps, but none the less an achievement. The last days of term were now drawing in. The House supper was only a few days off and the holidays very close. Everyone was glad on the whole to have finished the Christmas term, which is invariably the worst of the three. And this year it had not been improved by Clarke's military activities and the feeling of unrest that overhung the doings of the Fifteen, because of Lovelace major's never-ending broils with "the Bull." Two strong men both wanted their own way. On the whole, honours were even, though, if anything, slightly in Lovelace's favour, since he had filled up the scrum with a School House forward and a member of Benson's, a small and rather insignificant House, instead of giving the colours to men in Buller's. But next term there would be fewer rows. There would be house matches, and each house captain would run things in his own house as he wished. The school captain did little except post up which grounds each house was to occupy. The School House always longed for the Easter term. It was their chance of showing the rest of the school what they were made of. As they were slightly bigger than any other house, they claimed the honour of playing the three best of the outhouses in the great Three Cock House Match for the Senior Challenge Cup. This year, with Lovelace and Meredith, a School House victory was looked on as almost certain. Besides this big event there were the Two Cock and Thirds House Match. In the "Thirds" the School House under sixteen house side played against the two best of the outhouses under sixteen sides, for the Thirds Challenge Cup. And in the Two Cock, the second House Fifteen--that is, the House Fifteen minus those with first and second Fifteen colours--played the two best of the outhouse second Fifteens for the Junior Challenge Cup. The results of these last two matches were very much on the knees of the gods. The House stood a fair chance, but the general opinion was that Buller's would win the Thirds; and Christy's, a house that was full of average players who were too slack to get their seconds, would pull off the Two Cock. At any rate, there would be no lack of excitement. There was always far more keenness shown about house matches than school matches, a fact which worried Buller immensely. He thought everything should be secondary to the interests of Fernhurst.