The plot was admirably formed. On the first bell ringing for school, the
door was to be immediately barred, to prevent the entrance of Dallas.
Instant vengeance was then to be taken on Mallett and his companion--the
sneak! the spy! the traitor! The bell rang: the door was barred: four
stout fellows seized on Mallett, four rushed to Vivian Grey: but stop:
he sprang upon his desk, and, placing his back against the wall, held a
pistol at the foremost: "Not an inch nearer, Smith, or I fire. Let me
not, however, baulk your vengeance on yonder hound: if I could suggest
any refinements in torture, they would be at your service." Vivian Grey
smiled, while the horrid cries of Mallett indicated that the boys were
"roasting" him. He then walked to the door and admitted the barred-out
Dominie. Silence was restored. There was an explanation and no defence;
and Vivian Grey was expelled.




CHAPTER VI


Vivian was now seventeen; and the system of private education having so
decidedly failed, it was resolved that he should spend the years
antecedent to his going to Oxford at home. Nothing could be a greater
failure than the first weeks of his "course of study." He was
perpetually violating the sanctity of the drawing-room by the presence
of Scapulas and Hederics, and outraging the propriety of morning
visitors by bursting into his mother's boudoir with lexicons
and slippers.

"Vivian, my dear," said his father to him one day, "this will never do;