The nobility of my interference impressed me as I made it.
Meanwhile the angry blood mounted to Doe's face, but he carelessly
replied:

"You show what a horrible liar you are by your last remark. I never
said your beastly idea was mine; and because you accused me of doing
so, and I said I didn't, you call me a liar: which is a dirty lie,
if you like. But of course one expects lies from you."

"That may be," rejoined Pennybet. "But you know you don't wash."

Doe parried this thrust with a sarcastic acquiescence.

"No, I know I don't--never did--don't believe in washing."

Now Penny was out to hurt. A mere youngster had presumed to argue
and be cheeky with him: and discipline must be maintained. To this
end there must be punishment; and punishment, to be effective, must
hurt. So he adopted a new line, and with his clever strategy strove
to enlist my support by deigning to couple my name with his.

"At any rate," he drawled, "Ray and I don't toady to Radley."

This poisonous little remark requires some explanation. Mr. Radley,
the assistant house-master at Bramhall House, was a hard master, who
would have been hated for his insufferable conceptions of
discipline, had he not been the finest bat in the Middlesex team.
Just about this time there was a libel current that he made a
favourite of Edgar Doe because he was pretty. "Doe," I had once
said, "Radley's rather keen on you, isn't he?" And Doe had turned