"Oh, well, there was. I know I'm an awful swine and all that----Oh, it's pretty damnable; and the Three Cock, too! I believe I should have got my House cap!... I wasn't so dusty to-day--and I heard Armour say, as he came off the field----Damn, what the bloody hell does it matter what Armour said? It's over now. I just got across for a minute to see you men.... I said I wanted a book.... Lord, I can't believe it...." When he stopped speaking there was again a dead silence. None of the three had been brought face to face with such a tragedy before. Never, Gordon thought, had the Greek idea of Nemesis seemed so strong. Hunter broke the silence. "What are you going to do now?" "I don't know. I shall go home, and then, I suppose, I shall have to go to France or Germany, or perhaps some crammer. I don't know or care ... it's bound to be pretty rotten...." He half smiled. "My God, and it's damned unfair," Mansell said suddenly. "There are jolly few of us here any better than you, and look at the bloods, every one of them as fast as the devil, and you have to go just because----Oh, it's damned unfair." Then Jeffries' wild anger, the anger that had made him so brilliant an athlete, burst out: "Unfair? Yes, that's the right word; it is unfair. Who made me what I am but Fernhurst? Two years ago I came here as innocent as Caruthers there; never knew anything. Fernhurst taught me everything; Fernhurst made me worship games, and think that they alone mattered, and everything else could go to the deuce. I heard men say about bloods whose lives were an open scandal, 'Oh, it's all right, they can play football.' I thought it was all right too. Fernhurst made me think it was. And now Fernhurst, that has made me what I am, turns round and says, 'You are not fit to be a member of this great school!' and I have to go. Oh, it's fair, isn't it?" He dropped exhausted into a chair. After a pause he went on: "Oh, well, it's no use grousing. I suppose if one hits length balls on the middle stump over square leg's head one must run the risk of being bowled; and I didn't believe in sticking in and doing nothing. 'Get on or get out,' and, well, I've got out." He laughed rather hysterically. Again silence. Slowly Jeffries got up. "Well, good-bye, you men." He shook hands. As he opened the door he paused for a second, laughed to himself: "Oh, it's funny, bloody funny," he murmured. "Not fit for Fernhurst.... Bloody funny." He laughed again, bitterly. The door closed slowly. Jeffries' footsteps could be heard on the stairs. They grew fainter; the door leading to the Chief's side of the House slammed. Down the study passage a gramophone struck up _Florrie was a Flapper_. In Study 34 there was an awful stillness. That evening on the way down to supper Gordon overheard Armour say to Meredith: "What a fool that man Jeffries is, getting bunked, and mucking up the grovel. Damned ass, the man is." Meredith agreed.