Jack of Both Sides | Page 2

day-boys like poison, and they'll let you all feel it too. I had a nice dose of it last term, and I'm jolly glad there are some more of you to share it with me this time."
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said a boy called Armitage. "And are they all such donkeys as to care whether we sleep here or not?"
"They're all such sheep as to follow the same track blindly, and not dare to act on their own hook," replied Bacon. "It's the fashion to run down day-boys, that's all. But it's a beastly shame, and I almost wish West hadn't let me in."
"Oh, rubbish!" said Brady. "Fashions change quickly. We'll have a ripping time, in spite of everybody."
Meanwhile the boarders were discussing matters from their point of view.
"It's just what I expected," said Norman Hallett, a tall, well-built boy, who was the eldest in the school. "Once open the door--only a chink--and in pours the whole town." He waved a half-eaten crust to illustrate the pouring in.
"West had better drop the name of Brincliffe, and call us Elmridge Grammar School at once. That's what we are now," observed Green.
"I don't mind so much about that," said a grave-faced boy, whose name was Vickers; "but what I do hate is the way day-boys spoil everything. It can't be helped, but nothing's ever fair or equal when once day-boys get mixed up with a school. I'll tell you exactly what happens. First"--and here the speaker laid his forefinger on his thumb to mark the order--"First, they're always trying to make you green with envy by talking about the jolly things they're going to. Second, they're continually getting holidays for themselves on some pretence or other. Third, they love to pity you, and declare they'd shoot themselves rather than be regular boarders. Fourth, they buy cribs and keys, and keep them at home, and get help from their fathers, and work extra hours, and spoil your chance of a prize altogether. Fifth, they're for ever sniggering over private jokes about people you neither know nor want to--"
"Hold, Vickers, my dear chap!" broke in Cadbury, the school jester. "It pains me to check the fluency of our golden-mouthed orator, but I've been waiting in vain for 'Finally'. Let's have an innings. What I object to is that they're such a horrid lot. Cocky to a degree--simply think no end of themselves--and lose their hair altogether at the first little playful joke. I think the beastly way in which they took that bread game spoke for itself. I should like to have hammered them for that."
"West will be changing all our hours and classes soon to suit the convenience of the day-boarders. That'll be the next move. I know it, because I heard him ask that gawky chap they call Mason if he could stay on Wednesday evenings for the dancing class. If he could, indeed! That's the way they're going to be treated."
"If they are, it'll be war to the knife between us and them," observed Hallett, folding his arms with an air of conscious might.
"War wiz knife, Hallett? Ah!"
It was a black-browed foreign child of nine who whispered these words, creeping close to Hallett, and gazing up curiously into his face. Hallett burst out laughing.
"Listen to this bloodthirsty brigand of a March Hare! The instinct of his ancestors is strong within him. No, Harey," he continued, "I won't stickle for knives, or even pistols. Shall we call it war to the fist? Anything will do, so long as it's war."
"What do you all think of the weekly? Is he as bad as the rest?" asked Grey, one of the juniors. He was always careful to find out what he ought to think before he thought it.
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"Which is the weakly one?" asked Cadbury. "That lily-flower bending on its stalk to address the cheeky, black-eyed imp? He looks weakly enough, all eyes and hair."
"No, no; that's Hughes, from the Bank. I mean the new weekly boarder, who's to go home from Saturday to Monday."
"I know the one," said Hallett. "The apple-faced boy who does so much laughing. I heard someone call him Brady."
"Oh, that fellow! He doesn't look so bad," pronounced Trevelyan, who ranked only second to Hallett.
"He seems to have a strong sense of humour," remarked Vickers gravely, at which his comrades giggled. Vickers was commonly believed to have none. He never laughed when anyone else did.
"A weekly boarder is a very different thing from a day-boy," Hallett went on. "If Brady was wise he wouldn't go mixing himself up with that lot. I shall give him a wrinkle when he comes my way. He really looks rather decent, and he was the only one who grinned about the bread. Of course it may have been from sheer force of habit, and