As we had all been at Kensingtowe’s Preparatory School together, I was in a position to know that this was rather wild, and remonstrated with him.

“I say, that’s a bit sticky, isn’t it?”

The nobility of my interference impressed me as I made it.  Meanwhile the angry blood mounted to Doe’s face, but he carelessly replied: 

“You show what a horrible liar you are by your last remark.  I never said your beastly idea was mine; and because you accused me of doing so, and I said I didn’t, you call me a liar:  which is a dirty lie, if you like.  But of course one expects lies from you.”

“That may be,” rejoined Pennybet.  “But you know you don’t wash.”

Doe parried this thrust with a sarcastic acquiescence.

“No, I know I don’t—­never did—­don’t believe in washing.”

Now Penny was out to hurt.  A mere youngster had presumed to argue and be cheeky with him:  and discipline must be maintained.  To this end there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must hurt.  So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove to enlist my support by deigning to couple my name with his.

“At any rate,” he drawled, “Ray and I don’t toady to Radley.”

This poisonous little remark requires some explanation.  Mr. Radley, the assistant house-master at Bramhall House, was a hard master, who would have been hated for his insufferable conceptions of discipline, had he not been the finest bat in the Middlesex team.  Just about this time there was a libel current that he made a favourite of Edgar Doe because he was pretty.  “Doe,” I had once said, “Radley’s rather keen on you, isn’t he?” And Doe had turned red and scoffed:  “How absolutely silly—­but, I say, do you really think so?” Seeing that he found pleasure in the insinuation, I had followed it up with chaff, upon which he had suddenly cut up rough, and left me in a pique.

This morning, as Penny pricked him with this poisoned fang, Doe began to feel that for the moment he was alone amongst us three; and odd-man-out.  He put a tentative question to me, designed to see whether I were siding with him or with the foe.

“Now, Ray, isn’t that the dirtiest lie he’s told so far?”

“No,” I said.  I was still under the glamour of having been appealed to by the forceful personality of Pennybet; and, besides, it certainly wasn’t.

“Oh, of course you’d agree with anything Penny said, if he asked you to.  But you know you don’t really believe I ever sucked up to Radley.”

This rejoinder was bad tactics, for by its blow at my face it forced me to take sides against him in the quarrel.  So I answered: 

“Rather!  Why, you always do.”

“Dir-dirty liar!”

“Ha-ha!” laughed Penny.  He saw that he had been successful in his latest thrust, and set himself to push home the advantage.  The dominance of his position must be secured at all costs.  He let down his heavy-lashed eyelids, as though, for his part, he only desired a peaceful sleep, and said:  “Ha-ha!  Ray, that friend of yours is losing his temper.  He’s terribly vicious.  Mind he doesn’t scratch.”