man in agony.

Tom was sitting at the bottom of his bed unlacing his boots, so
that his back was toward Arthur, and he did not see what had
happened, and looked up in wonder at the sudden silence. Then two
or three boys laughed and sneered, and a big, brutal fellow,
who was standing in the middle of the room, picked up a slipper
and shied it at the kneeling boy, calling him a sniveling young
shaver.

Then Tom saw the whole, and the next moment the boot he had just
pulled off flew straight at the head of the bully, who had just
time to throw up his arm and catch it on his elbow. "Brown, you
rascal! What do you mean by that?" roared he, stamping with
pain."

"Never mind what I mean," said Tom, stepping on to the floor,
every drop of blood in his body tingling: "if any fellow wants
the other boot, he knows how to get it."

What would have been the result is doubtful, for at this moment
the sixth-form boy came in, and not another word could be said.
Tom and the rest rushed into bed and finished their unrobing
there, and the old janitor had put out the candle in another
minute, and toddled on to the next room, shutting the door with
his usual, "Good night, gen'l'm'n."

There were many boys in the room by whom that little scene was
taken to heart before they slept. But sleep seemed to have
deserted the pillow of poor Tom. For some time his excitement and