"Yes. And I decline to do anything of the sort. When people want me, they generally come to me, not order me to go to them." "Well, I have come: and now I am going to thrash you!" "I see. Start right away; don't wait for me!" Some of the Fourths laughed. This was quite unexpected. Elgert was manifestly disappointed, but he turned red. "We don't generally fight here," he said. "Will you come over?" "No, I will not. I will not budge an inch. I don't want to fight; but if you start it, it must be here. And if you don't stand aside and let us go on with our game there will be trouble!" "You fellows can laugh!" suddenly blazed Elgert, turning towards the grinning Fourths. "A nice thing to laugh at! He has got the proper chum--that's one thing! We all know about Charlton, and why no one will chum with him; and this chap is not much better. I saw my pater at dinner-time, and a fine way he was in when I told him of the new boy we had. "You know the yarn he told about his father disappearing? Where has he gone to? People don't disappear in England, unless they want to! My pater says that a burglar broke into our house, and that he fired at him and hit him; and he says, from the description, that the burglar must have been the man that came to Stow Ormond with this chap, and passed as his father, and----" "Stop!" said Ralph, very quietly still, but with an ominous expression of face. But Elgert laughed contemptuously. "Why, I don't know that I would soil my hands fighting with the son, or the associate, of a thief!" he said. And then, suddenly forgetting everything in the feeling of hot indignation which overwhelmed him, Ralph Rexworth raised his hand, and in a moment his taunting enemy lay prostrate on the ground. CHAPTER VIII A MYSTERIOUS MIDNIGHT VISITOR "Hurrah!" "Bravo, Rexworth!" "Now, you Fifths, does your man want to fight?" Such were the gleeful shouts of the Fourth when they beheld Horace Elgert on the ground. And the Fifths, alarmed for the honour of their class, rushed to pick up their fallen champion, saying-- "Don't make such a row! Of course he will fight. Get over to the other side, where we shall not be seen, and we will come!" But Ralph would not listen to any such arguments. He stood there, looking down at his fallen foe, and he said shortly-- "You fellows will please to mind your own business! I am going nowhere to fight until this chap has apologized, then, if a fight is wanted, we will move!" "But you cannot fight here! The Head will see us!" cried a score of voices. "I cannot help that! This fellow has told a lie about my father, and he has got to unsay it, or take the consequences! I suppose that he thinks I was afraid because I tried to avoid a fight the very first day of being at school. Well, I am not afraid! If he had only talked about me I might have taken no notice, but when he comes to speaking as he has done he is going too far, and he has got to take back his words now, or finish it here!"