It amused me too.

They told you I had a spite against them.

I must say it's the first I've heard of it.

As a rule Sixth-form fellows don't waste much time in plotting against boys in the Third; but Richardson evidently thinks he and his friends are considerably more important than other boys of their age and brains.

Suppose I were to tell you that, instead of my having a spite against any one, somebody has, for the last year, had a spite against me, and that somebody is the holy Captain of Templeton?
Suppose I told you that he dared not show it openly, but made use of my wretched fag and his friends to tell tales, and trump up stories about me?
Suppose I told you he and his fellow- monitors resorted to a mean dodge to get me to resign my monitorship, and then got up this precious Club in order to soft-soap their own toadies for helping them to do it?
What has Mansfield done for Templeton, I should like to know?
Hasn't he done more harm than good by his hectoring manner and his favouritism and fussiness?
Isn't he one of the most unpopular fellows in Templeton?
Didn't he all but get ignominiously left out of his own wonderful Club?
And what do you think of him when he gets up here and tries to pass as a model of justice, when as likely as not, he has pre-arranged the whole affair, and told every one what part he is to play in the farce ?" He sat down amid a dead silence, conscious he had overdone it.