different from an ordinary school.

"I say, Diggy," exclaimed Jack Vance, addressing the new boy by the
friendly abbreviation, which seemed by mutual consent to have been
bestowed upon him in recognition of his daring exploit--"I say, Diggy,
you're in my bedroom: there's you, and me, and Mugford. Mug's an awful
chump, but he's a good-natured old duffer, and you and I'll do the
fighting."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, sometimes when Blake is out spending the evening, and old Welsby
is shut up in his library, the different rooms make raids on one
another. It began the term before last. Blake had been teaching us all
about how the Crusaders used to go out every now and then and make war
in Palestine, and so the fellows on the west side of the house called
themselves the Crusaders, and we were Infidels, and they'd come over and
rag us, and we should drive them back. Miss Eleanor came up one night,
and caught us in the middle of a battle. O Diggy, she is a trump!
Blake asked her next day before us all which boys had been out on the
landing, because he meant to punish them; and she laughed, and said:
'I'm sure I can't tell you. Why, when I saw they were all in their
night-shirts, I shut my eyes at once!' Of course it was all an excuse
for not giving us away. She doesn't mind seeing chaps in their
night-shirts when they're ill, we all know that; and once or twice
when for some reason or other she told us on the quiet that there
mustn't be any disturbance that evening, no one ever went crusading--
Acton would have licked them if they had. Acton's going to propose to
Miss Eleanor some day, he told us so, and--"