looked with the others in silence across the playground and began to feel afraid.

At last Fleming said:

----And we are all to be punished for what other fellows did?

----I won't come back, see if I do, Cecil Thunder said. Three days' silence in the refectory and sending us up for six and eight every minute.

----Yes, said Wells. And old Barrett has a new way of twisting the note so that you can't open it and fold it again to see how many ferulae you are to get. I won't come back too.

----Yes, said Cecil Thunder, and the prefect of studies was in second of grammar this morning.

----Let us get up a rebellion, Fleming said. Will we?

All the fellows were silent. The air was very silent and you could hear the cricketbats but more slowly than before: pick, pock.

Wells asked:

----What is going to be done to them?

----Simon Moonan and Tusker are going to be flogged, Athy said, and the fellows in the higher line got their choice of flogging or being expelled.

----And which are they taking? asked the fellow who had spoken first.

----All are taking expulsion except Corrigan, Athy answered. He's going to be flogged by Mr Gleeson.

----Is it Corrigan that big fellow? said Fleming. Why, he'd be able for two of Gleeson!

----I know why, Cecil Thunder said. He is right and the other fellows are wrong because a flogging wears off after a bit but a fellow that has been expelled from college is knosn all his life on account of it. Besides Gleeson won't flog him hard.

----It's best of his play not to, Fleming said.