be strong-minded and the committee weak, they were apt to be slightly
out of it, and the captain would develop a habit of consulting them a
day or so after he had done a thing. He would give a man his colours,
and inform the committee of it on the following afternoon, when the
thing was done and could not be repealed.

Trevor was accustomed to ask the advice of his lieutenants fairly
frequently. He never gave colours, for instance, off his own bat. It
seemed to him that it might be as well to learn what views Milton and
Allardyce had on the subject of Barry, and, after the Town team had
gone back across the river, defeated by a goal and a try to nil, he
changed and went over to Seymour's to interview Milton.

Milton was in an arm-chair, watching Renford brew tea. His was one of
the few studies in the school in which there was an arm-chair. With the
majority of his contemporaries, it would only run to the portable kind
that fold up.

"Come and have some tea, Trevor," said Milton.

"Thanks. If there's any going."

"Heaps. Is there anything to eat, Renford?"

The fag, appealed to on this important point, pondered darkly for a
moment.

"There _was_ some cake," he said.

"That's all right," interrupted Milton, cheerfully. "Scratch the cake.