I wonder, Dick, if you'd mind trying to find out?
It maybe a trick, you know, after all." "Don't look like it," said Dick, glancing again at the letter.

"It's too like what everybody says about _him_." "That's the worst of it.

He's hardly said a word to me since I've been his fag, and certainly nothing bad; and he writes my Latin verses for me, too.

I fancy fellows are down on him too much." "Well," said Dick, "I'll try and pump Cresswell; but I _wish_ to goodness, Georgie, you weren't that beast's fag." Every conversation he had on the subject, no matter with whom, ended in some such ejaculation, till Heathcote got quite used to it, and even ceased to be disturbed by it.
Indeed, he was half disappointed, after all the warning and sympathy he had received, to find no call made upon his virtue, and no opportunity of making a noble stand against the wiles of the "spider." He would rather have enjoyed a mild passage of arms in defence of his uprightness; and it was a little like a "sell" to find Pledge turn out, after all, so uninterestingly like everybody else.
Dick duly took an opportunity of consulting Cresswell on his friend's behalf.
"I say, Cresswell," said he, one morning, as the senior and his fag walked back from the "Tub." "Who was Forbes ?" "Never mind," said Cresswell, shortly.
This was a rebuff, certainly; but Dick stuck to his purpose.
"Heathcote asked me," he said.

"He's Pledge's fag, and everybody says to him he'll come to grief like Forbes; and he doesn't know what they mean." "You gave your chum my message, did you ?" said Cresswell.
"Oh, yes; and, do you know, the other evening he had a letter thrown into him, he doesn't know where from, saying the same thing ?" Cresswell whistled, and stared at his fag.
"Was it signed 'Junius,' and done up in a ball ?" he asked, excitedly.
"Yes.