“Now, Edgar Doe,” began Stanley, and his voice was the signal for silence in the court and for all eyes to be concentrated on the prisoner.  “You’ve made a little fool of yourself.  You’ve openly set us all at defiance and, no doubt, thought yourself mighty clever.  I don’t think you’d have been so ready to do it if we hadn’t been decent and had you in here sometimes.  But that’s beside the point, only I may say in passing that we shan’t have you here any more.”

“I don’t care,” said Doe.  “I don’t want to come, and I wouldn’t come if you asked me.”

“Yes, we all know that.  It was the obvious thing to say, Mr. Edgar Gray Doe.  Now we aren’t bullies, and perhaps, had you comforted your friend on the Q.T., and been copped doing so, we’d have let you off.  But it’s the beastly blatancy of it all that constitutes the gravity of your offence and detracts from its value as a self-denying act of friendship.  Do I express myself clearly?” concluded Stanley, turning to his colleagues.

“Perfectly,” said Kepple-Goddard.

“Well, Doe, did you grasp the drift of all I said?”

“I wasn’t listening.”

Stanley, nonplussed, looked round upon the jury.  Banana-Skin muttered:  “The little devil!” Bickerton from the fender sighed:  “St. St. Ah, me! to think how we’ve swept and garnished the Gray Doe!  ’I never loved a dear gazelle, But what it turned and stung me well.’”

“Dry up, Bicky,” came the president’s rebuke, “and go and turn away those kids who are making a row with their feet in the corridor.  Remain on guard out there, if you don’t mind.  It’s behaviour like Doe’s that makes these kids so uppish.  Thanks, Bicky.”

There was a sound of scurrying feet and repressed impish laughter, as Bickerton opened the door and shut it behind him.

“Now, Doe,” resumed Stanley, “what have you to say for yourself before we leave the talking and get to business?”

“Nothing,” replied Doe, “except that I’ll go on being pally with Ray whatever you do, you—­you set of cads!”

“I say”—­Stanley was keeping his temper—­“don’t play the persecuted hero defying the world.  It won’t wash here.”

“I’m not playing the persecuted hero,” retorted Doe loudly, but with drowned eyes.  “I didn’t think myself mighty clever—­I—­”

“I thought you hadn’t been listening,” put in Banana-Skin in a quiet and torturing way.

“And I thought you’d nothing to say for yourself,” added another.

“Steady, Banana,” remonstrated Stanley, “don’t tease the kid.”

“They’re not teasing me.  I don’t care what they say or what any of you do.”

“What a little liar it is!” taunted Banana-Skin, “when he’s fairly blubbing there.”

“I’m not!”

“Fetch the cane out,” pursued Banana-Skin, unheeding.  “It’s no good talking.  Get him over that chair, Kepple.”

“You shan’t!” said Doe, trembling terribly.