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Updated: May 13, 2025
Closing, they saw, was their best chance, and Flashman was wilder and more flurried than ever: he caught East by the throat, and tried to force him back on the iron-bound table. Tom grasped his waist, and remembering the old throw he had learned in the Vale from Harry Winburn, crooked his leg inside Flashman's, and threw his whole weight forward.
He stood by them all through and seldom have small boys had more need of a friend. Flashman and his associates united in "bringing the young vagabonds to their senses," and the whole house was filled with chasings, sieges, and lickings of all sorts.
The great argument put forward by the supporters of what I may call the "One Author" view, was, that the fight in part two could not have been written by anyone except the author of the fight with Flashman in the school-house hall. And this is the point which has led to all the discussion.
"Not he," said Diggs, getting leisurely off the table; "it's all sham; he's only afraid to fight it out." East was as frightened as Tom. Diggs lifted Flashman's head, and he groaned. "What's the matter?" shouted Diggs. "My skull's fractured," sobbed Flashman. "Oh, let me run for the housekeeper!" cried Tom. "What shall we do?" "Fiddlesticks!
"I begin to get a glimmering of what you mean," said East. "I say, now," said Tom eagerly, "do you remember how we both hated Flashman?" "Of course I do," said East; "I hate him still. What then?" "Well, when I came to take the Sacrament, I had a great struggle about that.
"You be hanged," said Flashman, lugging the wretched boy along; "'twon't hurt you, you! Come along, boys; here he is." "I say, Flashey," sang out another of the big boys; "drop that; you heard what old Pater Brooke said to-night. I'll be hanged if we'll toss any one against their will. No more bullying. Let him go, I say."
They rushed in on him, and he hit out wildly and savagely, and in another minute Tom went spinning backwards over a form; and Flashman turned to demolish East, with a savage grin. But Diggs jumped down from the table on which he had seated himself. "Stop there!" shouted he. "The round's over! Half minute time allowed! I'm going to see fair. Are you ready, Brown? Time's up!"
The war, in short, raged fiercely; but soon, as Diggs had told them, all the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public feeling began to set against Flashman and his two or three intimates, and they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being thorough bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private.
A noise and steps are heard in the passage, the door opens, and in rush four or five great fifth-form boys, headed by Flashman in his glory. Tom and East slept in the farther corner of the room, and were not seen at first. "Gone to ground, eh?" roared Flashman. "Push 'em out then, boys; look under the beds." And he pulled up the little white curtain of the one nearest him.
And he hands the ticket to Tom, who pockets it. Whereupon Flashman makes for the door at once, that Tom and the ticket may not escape, and there keeps watch until the drawing is over and all the boys are gone, except the sporting set of five or six, who stay to compare books, make bets, and so on; Tom, who doesn't choose to move while Flashman is at the door; and East, who stays by his friend, anticipating trouble.
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