"I'm awfully glad, old man, that I am able to tell you this, because,
although you're Captain of the school, you can't do anything, since
Acton is a monitor."
(It is an unwritten law at St. Amory's that one monitor can never, under
any circumstances, "peach" upon another.)
"Well, I'm jolly glad too, Bourne, since your brother's in it."
"What has to be done to Acton? Jack, of course, was only a tool in his
hands."
"Oh, of course. It is perfectly certain that our friend engineered the
whole business up to and including the letter, which _was_ meant for
you."
"Do you really think that?" said Phil.
"I'm as certain of it as I can be of anything that I don't actually know
to be true."
"Why did he do it?"
"Do you feel anything about this, old man?"
"I feel in the bluest funk that I can remember."
"Then, that's why."
"You see, I cannot put my ringer on the brute."
"He has you in a cleft stick. Who knows that better than Acton?"
"I'm going to thrash Jack, the little idiot. I distinctly told him to
give Acton a wide berth."
"Jack, of course, is an idiot; but Acton is the fellow that wants the
thrashing."
Phil pondered over this for fully five minutes.
"You're right, old man, and I'll give--I'll try to give--him the
thrashing he deserves."
"Big biz," said I. "You say you aren't as good as Hodgson; Hodgson isn't
in the same street as Acton; _ergo_, you aren't in the same parish."
"That's your beastly logic, Carr.
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