Griffin whispered “Come on,” and walked ahead down the length of the corridor and another flight of stairs to a room of immense length, with whitewashed walls, along which were ranged as many as thirty red-blanketed beds. Down the centre of the dormitory a trestled table of well-scoured wood held a double row of wash-hand basins and soap-dishes. “There you are,” said Griffin, in a very off-hand way. “You’d better bag a bed.” “Which one is mine, please?” Edwin asked. His head was aching so furiously that he could have lain down on the floor. “I’ve told you, you’ve got to bag one. Don’t you hear? You’d better go and ask that man over there. Try the next one to his.” That man over there was a stumpy boy with the face of a hyena and a shock of black hair, who scowled at Ingleby’s approach. “Here, get away. You can’t come here. I don’t want any new kids near me. Keep him to yourself, Griffin.” Ingleby was thrown violently into Griffin’s arms, and then buffeted backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock between them. This game proved to be such excellent fun that wherever he sought a bed on which to lay his things it was continued by his immediate neighbours. He was greenly pale and beginning to cry when a tall, dark boy, wearing glasses, arrived and made straight for the group that surrounded him. “Here’s Layton,” whispered some one. “What’s this?” he asked. “A new boy?—What’s your name?” “Ingleby.” “What’s the matter?” “They won’t let me find a bed.” “Come along down this end, then.” He moved majestically to the end of the dormitory nearest to the door and pointed to a vacant bedstead, “There you are,” he said. He was kindly without the least trace of unbending. Ingleby took him for a prefect; already he had received the canonisation of heroism. He stood and watched Edwin spread out his nightshirt on the bed. At this moment the climax of his migraine arrived. Edwin was sick. Layton’s lips curled. “Dirty little skunk,” he said as he hurried away. A slipper, cleverly aimed from the other end of the room, caught Ingleby full on his burning cheek. The pain seemed to blind him.