"I am sorry to hear you say that, for I don't want to be fighting if I can help it, and I would far rather be friends with----" He paused. He was going to say "friends with him." But that was not true. He felt that, apart from anything which had happened yesterday, he could not be friends with the son of a man who had said that his father was a thief. "I don't want to fight him," he said slowly; and Warren nodded. "I know; but if he challenges you, what then?" Ralph looked grave. No boy likes to be thought a coward; but still he did not want to fight. "If I can get out of it I shall," he said: and the monitor looked just a trifle disappointed, while one or two of the boys laughed. "It is not that I am afraid of him," Ralph said hastily. "It is that I don't want to begin fighting, if I can avoid it." "For goodness' sake, then, keep out of his way, and don't let him get to know that, for if Elgert thinks that he can do it without the chance of a row following, he is bound to challenge you. He is bound to, anyhow, so far as I can see, and it won't be nice for a fellow in the Fourth to refuse a challenge from the Fifth. If it was one of the youngsters in the Third, it would be different. No one would say that we were frightened to fight them; but in the Fifth they are bound to say that it was fear, and---- Hurry up, you chaps, there is the bell going!" A scamper, fast as they could go, and they trooped in to breakfast, so hungry, spite of cake and milk, that not even the troubled question of the probable challenge could disturb their appetites. Only Warren looked across to where Horace Elgert sat, and he muttered to himself-- "I wish that we hadn't talked of it before the others. If one of them lets out that Rexworth will not fight, Elgert is sure to make no end of it. I understand why Rexworth don't like it, and it is all right, but still--oh, he will have to fight, like it or not, and that is all about it." Morning lessons occupied their thoughts after breakfast, and Ralph found himself quite eager to master the things which, while they were hard to him, seemed easy to his companions. He had already determined that he would excel with dumb-bells and Indian clubs, and now it was just the same with lessons. He hated to be beaten, and he was not going to be beaten. And already he reaped the reward of having put in a couple of hours' study the evening before, with Charlton to lend him a hand. He was praised by Mr. Delermain, and rose rapidly from the bottom of the class towards the top, and, thanks to his firmness the day before, he had no more of the unpleasantness with Dobson, who remained persistently at the very bottom of the class. Slow and steady, he found the best way, doing each thing thoroughly, and thinking only of one thing at a time; and that is always the best way, not only to learn, but to do everything in life.