"No, I'd better come by boat, I think. I'll turn up on Tuesday at about five. Will that suit you?" "Yes, sir. That will be a good time. Then I'll say good bye, sir, for the present." Sheen went back to his house in a different mood from the one in which he had left it. He did not care now when the other Seymourites looked through him. In the passage he met Linton, and grinned pleasantly at him. "What the dickens was that man grinning at?" said Linton to himself. "I must have a smut or something on my face." But a close inspection in the dormitory looking-glass revealed no blemish on his handsome features. VIII A NAVAL BATTLE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES What a go is life! Let us examine the case of Jackson, of Dexter's. O'Hara, who had left Dexter's at the end of the summer term, had once complained to Clowes of the manner in which his house-master treated him, and Clowes had remarked in his melancholy way that it was nothing less than a breach of the law that Dexter should persist in leading a fellow a dog's life without a dog licence for him. That was precisely how Jackson felt on the subject. Things became definitely unbearable on the day after Sheen's interview with Mr Joe Bevan. 'Twas morn--to begin at the beginning--and Jackson sprang from his little cot to embark on the labours of the day. Unfortunately, he sprang ten minutes too late, and came down to breakfast about the time of the second slice of bread and marmalade. Result, a hundred lines. Proceeding to school, he had again fallen foul of his house-master--in whose form he was--over a matter of unprepared Livy. As a matter of fact, Jackson _had_ prepared the Livy. Or, rather, he had not absolutely _prepared_ it; but he had meant to. But it was Mr Templar's preparation, and Mr Templar was short-sighted. Any one will understand, therefore, that it would have been simply chucking away the gifts of Providence if he had not gone on with the novel which he had been reading up till the last moment before prep-time, and had brought along with him accidentally, as it were. It was a book called _A Spoiler of Men_, by Richard Marsh, and there was a repulsive crime on nearly every page. It was Hot Stuff. Much better than Livy.... Lunch Score--Two hundred lines. During lunch he had the misfortune to upset a glass of water. Pure accident, of course, but there it was, don't you know, all over the table. Mr Dexter had called him-- (a) clumsy; (b) a pig; and had given him (1) Advice--"You had better be careful, Jackson". (2) A present--"Two hundred lines, Jackson". On the match being resumed at two o'clock, with four hundred lines on the score-sheet, he had played a fine, free game during afternoon school, and Mr Dexter, who objected to fine, free games--or, indeed, any games--during school hours, had increased the total to six hundred, when stumps were drawn for the day.