exhorted the fags to go and make a row in the passage outside
Kennedy's study, and--from a safe distance, and having previously
ensured a means of rapid escape--to fling boots at his door, Billy
damped the popular enthusiasm which had been excited by the proposal
by kicking Wren with some violence, and begging him not to be an ass.
Whereupon they resumed their battle at the point at which it had been
interrupted at camp. And when, some five minutes later, Billy, from
his seat on his adversary's chest, offered to go through the same
performance with anybody else who wished, the junior dayroom came to
the conclusion that his feelings with regard to the new head of the
house, however foolish and unpatriotic, had better be respected. And
the revolution of the fags had fizzled out from that moment.

In the senior dayroom, however, the flag of battle was still unfurled.
It was so obvious that Kennedy had been put into the house as a
reformer, and the seniors of Kay's had such an objection to being
reformed, that trouble was only to be expected. It was the custom in
most houses for the head of the house, by right of that position, to
be also captain of football. The senior dayroom was aggrieved at
Kennedy's taking this post from Fenn. Fenn was in his second year in
the school fifteen, and he was the three-quarter who scored most
frequently for Eckleton, whereas Kennedy, though practically a
certainty for one of the six vacant places in the school scrum, was at
present entitled to wear only a second fifteen cap. The claims of Fenn
to be captain of Kay's football were strong, Kennedy had begged him to
continue in that position more than once. Fenn's persistent refusal
had helped to increase the coolness between them, and it had also made
things more difficult for Kennedy in the house.

It was on the Monday of the third week of term that Kennedy, at Jimmy