The boys were exceedingly disappointed that no catastrophe followed the events of the day.  Heriot, they thought, might have upset the boat, saved Julia, and drowned Boddy, and given us a feast of pleasurable excitement:  instead of which Boddy lived to harass us with his tyrannical impositions and spiteful slaps, and it was to him, not to our Heriot, that Julia was most gracious.  Some of us discussed her conduct.

‘She’s a coquette,’ said little Temple.  I went off to the French dictionary.

‘Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot?’ I asked him.

‘Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows,’ said he, dealing me a smart thump.

‘Is a coquette a nasty girl?’ I persisted.

‘No, a nice one, as it happens,’ was his answer.

My only feeling was jealousy of the superior knowledge of the sex possessed by Temple, for I could not fathom the meaning of coquette; but he had sisters.  Temple and I walked the grounds together, mutually declaring how much we would forfeit for Heriot’s sake.  By this time my Sunday visits to Julia had been interdicted:  I was plunged, as it were, in the pit of the school, and my dreams of my father were losing distinctness.  A series of boxes on the ears from Boddy began to astound and transform me.  Mr. Rippenger, too, threatened me with carvings, though my offences were slight.  ‘Yes,’ said Temple and I, in chorus, ’but you daren’t strike Heriot!’ This was our consolation, and the sentiment of the school.  Fancy, then, our amazement to behold him laying the cane on Heriot’s shoulders as fiercely as he could, and Boddy seconding him.  The scene was terrible.  We were all at our desks doing evening tasks for the morrow, a great matchday at cricket, Boddy watching over us, and bellowing, ’Silence at your work, you lazy fellows, if you want lessons to be finished at ten in the morning!’ A noise came growing up to us from below, up the stairs from the wet-weather shed, and Heriot burst into the room, old Rippenger after him, panting.

‘Mr. Boddy, you were right,’ he cried, ’I find him a prowler, breaking all rules of discipline.  A perverted, impudent rascal!  An example shall be set to my school, sir.  We have been falling lax.  What!  I find the puppy in my garden whistling—­he confesses—­for one of my servants—­here, Mr. Boddy, if you please.  My school shall see that none insult me with impunity!’ He laid on Heriot like a wind on a bulrush.  Heriot bent his shoulders a trifle, not his head.

‘Hit away, sir,’ he said, during the storm of blows, and I, through my tears, imagined him (or I do now) a young eagle forced to bear the thunder, but with his face to it.  Then we saw Boddy lay hands on him, and in a twinkling down pitched the usher, and the boys cheered—­chirped, I should say, they exulted so, and merely sang out like birds, without any wilfulness of delight or defiance.  After the fall of Boddy we had no sense of our hero suffering shame.  Temple and I clutched fingers