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It doesn't look a fair match at first glance: Williams is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year older than his opponent, and he is very strongly made about the arms and shoulders; "peels well," as the little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say; who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking complacently on, but taking no active part in the proceedings.
A few days beforehand, the fifth-form boarders, under the tutelage of a couple of governesses, drove off early in the morning to the distant university. On the outward journey the candidates were thoughtful and subdued; but as they returned home, in the late afternoon, their spirits were not to be kept within seemly bounds.
After luncheon and a rest period, Nancy took Judith for a tour of inspection; tennis courts, cricket field, gymnasium, common room, and library were visited in turn, the etiquette of the stairs explained Judith learned that it was considered fearful "side" for a Fifth-Form girl to use the front stairway to the entrance hall and the round ended in the tuck shop where Judith was introduced to the presiding genius Mrs.
"Order, order," shouted one or two of the few fifth-form fellows present; "let's have the thing managed properly. Who'll take the chair?" There was a general call for Kenrick, and as he was one of the highest fellows in the room, he got into the chair, and amid a general silence delivered his views of the present affair.
Against them now appeared the names of Ainger and Stafford, and the plucky Ranger of the Fifth, and so on down the list, for all the big events, the prefects and the redoubtable Fifth-form "muggers" of Railsford's had set their challenge, and the hearts of the juniors swelled big within them as they crowded round the board to write their names against the lesser contests.
All his life he had ordered little human beings about, and now he was equally magisterial to big ones: Stephen was a fifth-form lout whom, owing to some flaw in the regulations, he could not send up to the headmaster to be caned. This attitude makes for tranquillity. Before long he felt merely an injured martyr. His brain cleared.
Now I take leave to say that the rawest of fifth-form lads never uttered a more school-boyish sentiment than that; and I wonder how a man of the world came to make such a blunder. Byron had lived in the degraded London of the Regency, when Europe's rascality flocked towards St. James's as belated birds flock towards a light; and he should have known some villains if any one did.
"When do you say it?" inquired the fifth-form boy; and finding that it was not required till five o'clock, and discrediting my singular difficulty, which I stated to him, he at once took me away, notwithstanding that, as a saving clause, I asserted the privilege due to a boy's first fortnight, but which, I was now told, should not avail me for having told such a falsehood about the lesson.
And I was cold when I sat before the fire. Are fifth-form girls colder than anyone else, that they must have all the heat?" "You know perfectly well what I mean, or if you don't, you are a stupid child, and you needn't fly into a temper when I tell you your mistakes.
And the fifth-form boy next filled him a tumbler of bottled beer, and he ate and drank, listening to the pleasant talk, and wondering how soon he should be in the fifth, and one of that much-envied society. As he got up to leave, Brooke said, "You must shake hands to-morrow morning; I shall come and see that done after first lesson." And so he did.
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