"Why, it's an awful licking.

Every one was sure Pony would be five hundred ahead." "It's foul play and bribery, depend on it," said another.
"Or they've counted wrong." "Or Brown is telling lies!" Now, if Brown had been a wise boy he would have taken advantage of the excitement which immediately followed his announcement to retreat quietly and rapidly up to the school, and he reproached himself greatly that he had not.

For the ill-temper of the assembly was only too ready to fix on some object upon which to vent itself, and this last suggestion, coupled with the suspicion that Brown's father had been one of the backers of the Radical candidate, brought the town boy once more into most uncomfortable notoriety.
He was hunted almost for his life round the playground and up to the school.

It was no use for him to protest that he was out-and-out yellow, that his father had been on Pony's committee.

He was far too valuable a scapegoat to be let off; and when at last he managed to bolt headlong into the school and seek shelter in the master's cloak-room, it is safe to say that though he himself felt rather the worse for the adventure, Willoughby on the whole felt rather better.
In due time the news was confirmed, and the school settled rather viciously down to its ordinary work.