“Fiddlesticks! it’s nothing but the skin broken,” said the relentless Diggs, feeling his head. “Cold water and a bit of rag’s all he’ll want.”

“Let me go,” said Flashman, surlily, sitting up; “I don’t want your help.”

“We’re really very sorry,” began East.

“Hang your sorrow,” answered Flashman, holding his handkerchief to the place; “you shall pay for this, I can tell you, both of you.” And he walked out of the hall.

“He can’t be very bad,” said Tom with a deep sigh, much relieved to see his enemy march so well.

“Not he,” said Diggs, “and you’ll see you won’t be troubled with him any more. But, I say, your head’s broken too—your collar is covered with blood.”

“Is it though?” said Tom, putting up his hand; “I didn’t know it.”

“Well, mop it up, or you’ll have your jacket spoilt. And you have got a nasty eye, Scud; you’d better go and bathe it well in cold water.”

“Cheap enough too, if we’re done with our old friend Flashey,” said East, as they made off up-stairs to bathe their wounds.

They had done with Flashman in one sense, for he never laid finger on either of them again; but whatever harm a spiteful heart and venomous tongue could do them, he took care should be done. Only throw dirt enough, and some of it is sure to stick; and so it was with the fifth form and the bigger boys in general, with whom he associated more or less, and they not at all. Flashman managed to get Tom and East into disfavour, which did not wear off for some time after the author of it had disappeared from the School world. This event, much prayed for by the small fry in general, took place a few months after the above encounter. One fine summer evening Flashman had been regaling himself on ginpunch, at Brownsover; and having exceeded his usual limits, started home uproarious. He fell in with a friend or two coming back from bathing, proposed a glass of beer, to which they assented, the weather being hot, and they thirsty souls, and unaware of the quantity of drink which Flashman had already on board. The short result was, that Flashey became beastly drunk: they tried to get him along, but couldn’t; so they chartered a hurdle and two men to carry him. One of the masters came upon them, and they naturally enough fled. The flight of the rest raised the master’s suspicions, and the good angel of the fags incited him to examine the freight, and, after examination, to convoy the hurdle himself up to the School-house; and the Doctor, who had long had his eye on Flashman, arranged for his withdrawal next morning.

The evil that men, and boys too, do, lives after them: Flashman was gone, but our boys, as hinted above, still felt the effects of his hate. Besides, they had been the movers of the strike against unlawful fagging. The cause was righteous—the result had been triumphant to a great extent; but the best of the fifth, even those who had never fagged the small boys, or had given up the practice cheerfully, couldn’t help feeling a small grudge against the first rebels. After all, their form had been defied—on just grounds, no doubt; so just, indeed, that they had at once acknowledged the wrong, and remained passive in the strife: had they sided with Flashman and his set, the rebels must have given way at once. They couldn’t help, on the whole, being glad that they had so acted, and that the resistance had been successful against such of their own form as had shown fight; they felt that law and order had gained thereby, but the ringleaders they couldn’t quite pardon at once. “Confoundedly coxy those young rascals will get, if we don’t mind,” was the general feeling.

So it is, and must be always, my dear boys. If the angel Gabriel were to come down from heaven, and head a successful rise against the most abominable and unrighteous vested interest which this poor old world groans under, he would most certainly lose his character for many years, probably for centuries, not only with the upholders of said vested interest, but with the respectable mass of the people whom