Not a prefect, it was true, but, still, practically a prefect. The
headmaster disliked unpleasantness between school and town, much more
so between the sixth form of the school and the town. Therefore, he had
done his duty in refusing to be drawn into a fight with Albert and
friends. Besides, why should he be expected to join in whenever he saw
a couple of fellows fighting? It wasn't reasonable. It was no business
of his. Why, it was absurd. He had no quarrel with those fellows. It
wasn't cowardice. It was simply that he had kept his head better than
Drummond, and seen further into the matter. Besides....

But when he sat down in his chair, this mood changed. There is a vast
difference between the view one takes of things when one is walking
briskly, and that which comes when one thinks the thing over coldly. As
he sat there, the wall of defence which he had built up slipped away
brick by brick, and there was the fact staring at him, without covering
or disguise.

It was no good arguing against himself. No amount of argument could
wipe away the truth. He had been afraid, and had shown it. And he had
shown it when, in a sense, he was representing the school, when Wrykyn
looked to him to help it keep its end up against the town.

The more he reflected, the more he saw how far-reaching were the
consequences of that failure in the hour of need. He had disgraced
himself. He had disgraced Seymour's. He had disgraced the school. He
was an outcast.

This mood, the natural reaction from his first glow of almost jaunty
self-righteousness, lasted till the lock-up bell rang, when it was
succeeded by another. This time he took a more reasonable view of the