The Bailie made only one public mistake in his life, but it was on the largest scale, and every one wondered that a man so sagacious should have deliberately entered into a feud with the boys of the Seminary. The Bailie had battled in turn with the Licensed Victuallers, who as a fighting body are not to be despised, and with the Teetotalers, whom every wise man who loves peace of mind leaves alone; with the Tories, who were his opponents, and with the Liberals, his own party, when he happened to disagree with them; with the Town Council, whom he vanquished, and with the Salmon Fishery Board, whom he brought to terms; but all those battles were as nothing to a campaign with the boys. There is all the difference in the world between a war with regulars, conducted according to the rules of military science, and a series of guerilla skirmishes, wherein all the chances are with the alert and light-armed enemy. Any personage who goes to war with boys is bound to be beaten, for he may threaten and attack, but he can hardly ever hurt them, and never possibly can conquer them; and they will buzz round him like wasps, will sting him and then be off, will put him to shame before the public, will tease him on his most sensitive side, will lie in wait for him in unexpected places with an ingenuity and a perseverance and a mercilessness which are born of the Devil, who in such matters is the unfailing ally of all genuine boys. It was no doubt annoying to a person of the Bailie's dignity and orderliness to see the terrace in which the Seminary stood, and which had the honour of containing his residence, turned into a playground, and outrageous that Jock Howieson, playing rounders in front of a magistrate's residence, should send the ball crack through the plate-glass window of a magistrate's dining-room. It was fearsome conduct on the part of Jock, and even the ball itself should have known better; but the Bailie might have been certain that Jock did not intend to lose his ball and his game also, and the maddest thing the magistrate could do was to make that ball a cause of war. It was easy enough to go to Bulldog's class-room and lodge a complaint, but as he could not identify the culprit, and no one would tell on Jock, the Bailie departed worsted, and the address which he gave the boys was received with derision. When he turned from the boys to the master, he fared no better, for Bulldog who hated tell-tales and had no particular respect for Bailies, told the great man plainly that his (Bulldog's) jurisdiction ceased at the outer door of the Seminary, and that it was not his business to keep order in the Terrace. Even the sergeant, when the Bailie commanded him to herd the boys in the courtyard, forgot the respect due to a magistrate, and refused point-blank, besides adding a gratuitous warning, which the Bailie deeply resented, to let the matter drop, or else he'd repent the day when he interfered with the laddies.