A cool hundred between them! We had the decency not to rub it in too hard. It was clear by the disconcerted look in the face of our so- called captain that he was more surprised than any one. He smiled, of course, and leant across to pat Pridgin on the back. But that was just his way--we knew well enough that it cloaked a bitter mortification, and why worry the poor beggar with letting him see we noticed it? So we waited till we got outside, and then let ourselves loose on Tempest and Pridgin, and positively injured our voices with cheering. That afternoon in the faggery our jubilant review of the situation was combined with a wind-up meeting of the Conversation Club for the term. "Jolly good show for us," said Langrish. "Crofter's pretty sick, but it'll do him good. I move and third, and Sarah seconds and fourths, that we send him a resolution of condolence." "Better let him alone," suggested I. "Shut up, or you'll get jolly well kicked out of the club," said the secretary. "If you don't want to be civil, it's no reason why we shouldn't." I had imagined I was on the whole more concerned for Crofter's feelings than they, but, putting it in the way they did, I could hardly resist. So the following resolution was solemnly drawn up and ordered to be conveyed to "The late Mr Crofter." "That this meeting of the Philosophical Conversation Club is hereby jolly glad to see Tempest cock of the house again, with Pridgin second man up. It hereby condoles with Crofter in the jolly back seat he has got to take, and is sorry he shirked the Mile. It begs to inform him that he is a hundred and eighteen marks behind Tempest, and trusts he will in future obey the house captain, to whom all applications for _exeats_ and extra leave are to be addressed. Crofter need not trouble to reply, as the club only desires to have communication with the cock of the house." This done, I was ordered to take the chair as the new president, and called upon the secretary to read the minutes. These were short and to the point,-- "'A general meeting of the Conversation Club was held on Monday in the Examination Hall. With his usual mulishness, Sarah thought he'd have a cut in, and it was resolved to give him a chance. Thanks to the drivelling idiotcy of Warminster, who doesn't even know the feminine genitive of _corpus_, he scraped through; and, as he couldn't do much worse than Coxhead, he did a shade better.'" "All very well," growled Coxhead, "he did a jolly sight better than you." "'Coxhead, who is hereby expelled for using slang, was, as usual, down with the paupers at the bottom. A town cad called Brown, who managed to conceal his cribs, came out first, and it was decided to tack Sarah on to him. Trimble, as might be expected, came a cropper in his English grammar--'" "A cram! They never examined us in it!" "There you are; you don't even know it when you see it--'came a cropper in his English grammar.'"