The whole assembly roared with laughter. That frightened him a little. Supposing they did not stop laughing! He remembered an occasion at his own school when a class had ragged a certain Master very neatly and subtly by pretending to go off into hysterics of laughter at some trifling witticism of his. When the laughter subsided, a lean, rather clever-looking boy rose up in the front row but one and said, impudently: "Please sir, I'm Worsley. I didn't do anything." Speed replied promptly: "Oh, didn't you? Well, you've got a hundred lines, anyway." "What for, sir"--in hot indignation. "For sitting in your wrong desk." Again the assembly laughed, but there was no mistaking the respectfulness that underlay the merriment. And, as a matter of fact, the rest of the evening passed entirely without incident. After the others had gone, and when the school-bell had rung for evening chapel, Worsley came up to the dais accompanied by the pleasant-faced boy who dropped the desk-lid. Worsley pleaded for the remission of his hundred lines, and the other boy supported him, urging that it was he and not Worsley who had dropped the lid. "And what is your name?" asked Speed. "Naylor, sir." "Very well, Naylor, you and Worsley can share the hundred lines between you." He added smiling: "I've no doubt you're neither of you worse than anybody else but you must pay the penalty of being pioneers." They went away laughing. That night Speed went into Clanwell's room for a chat before bedtime, and Clanwell congratulated him fulsomely on his successful passage of the ordeal. "As a matter of fact," Clanwell said, "I happen to know that they'd prepared a star benefit performance for you but that you put them off, somehow, from the beginning. The prefects get to hear of these things and they tell me. Of course, I don't take any official notice of them. It doesn't matter to me what plans people make--it's when any are put into execution that I wake up. Anyhow, you may be interested to know that the member's of School House subscribed over fifteen shillings to purchase fireworks which they were going to let off after the switches had been turned off! Alas for fond hopes ruined!" Clanwell and Speed leaned back in their armchairs and roared with laughter. III