“The idea seems to be that it’s no good doing anything, unless it’s done on a large scale.  I shall stick by the others and see what they do.”

“You’re to pass the word, they say, to keep massed.  I suppose their game is that small bodies can be dispersed, but we can’t be touched if we’re all caked together.  You’d better pass that on and explain it.”

“There are to be no dam black-legs.  I’ve just heard that any who slink off will be mobbed.”

“What are we waiting for?  Can’t say.  Depends who’s managing this shindy.  You can be sure somebody’s organising it, and we’ll do what the others do.  Toss that along.”

Really, Penny didn’t know what his great crowd was waiting for.  He had not had time to formulate a plan, but had contented himself with keeping his forces together.  And, while, closely compacted, they swayed about, unconscious that they were the plaything of one cool and remarkable boy, he hit upon the scheme of an offensive.  He decided that it would be futile to fight here, where all the school-prefects were concentrated; it would be better to transfer the attack to the courtyard of Bramhall House, where only the Bramhall prefects would have to be reckoned with.  To stay here was to attempt a frontal attack.  No, he would retreat as a feint, and outflank the school-prefects by a surprise movement in the direction of Bramhall.

“Have you heard?” he said.  “We’re all to disperse and meet again in five minutes in Bramhall courtyard.  I wonder what’s in the wind.”

Penny knew that not a single boy would fail to arrive at the advertised station, if only to see what was in the wind; and as the crowd disintegrated and the prefects strolled away, thinking the mutiny had petered out, he murmured to himself:  “A crowd’s an easy thing for a man to handle.”

Sec.2

So it was that there was silence everywhere when, returning to consciousness, I found myself in the empty baths with Dr. Chapman looking down upon me.

“One day we must thoroughly overhaul you, young man,” he said.  “There may be a weakness at your heart.  How’re you feeling now?”

“Oh, all right, thanks.”

“Bit disappointed, I suppose?”

“Rather!”

“Frightfully so?”

I didn’t answer.  His words filled my throat with a lump.

“Would blub, if you could, but can’t, eh?”

The question nearly brought the tears welling into my eyes.  He watched them swell, and said: 

“As a doctor, I should tell you to try and blub, but, as an old public-schoolboy, I should say ‘Try not to.’  Do which you like, old man.  Both are right.  I’ll not stay to see.”

And, without looking round, he withdrew from the building.

About ten minutes later I found myself in the deserted playing fields.  Knowing nothing of any breaches of the peace, I crossed the road and passed through the gateway into the courtyard of Bramhall House.  Immediately a great roar of cheers went up, I was seized by excited hands, raised on to the shoulders of several boys, and carried through a shouting multitude to the boys’ entrance, where I was deposited on the steps.