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 felt himself being torn away, he uttered a long and despairing squeal. Orr began to re-arrange his tie which had been somewhat disordered in the struggle.

‘Who are you going to have?’ asked the boy who had forced Piggy to leave go.

Orr hesitated and looked round; and as he did so, Jaspar somehow felt sure that it was he who would be taken: as indeed it was, for the next moment he heard his name called out and found himself, he scarce knew how, standing in front of Orr.

‘Now then,’ this latter cried, ‘off with your things!’

‘I don’t want to fight!’ he said. He spoke in a low voice and kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

‘What?’ cried Orr. ‘Speak up! What do you say?’

‘I don’t want to fight!’ he repeated in a louder tone.

But he was already beginning to be rather sorry he had not given in at once and was angry too at the notion that by being thus obliged to repeat what he had said he was being made ridiculous in the eyes of the others. And indeed there was a murmur in which he distinguished the word ‘Funk!’ and Piggy, in the very act of taking off his waistcoat, paused to stare at him in great surprise.

‘Oh, well!’ said Orr to his friend, ‘perhaps we’d better take some one else. Rosy don’t look as if he was up to much. What do you say to Tub?’

So Jaspar turned sullenly upon his heel and went back to his place. ‘Funk, funk!’ murmured the boys as he passed through, and there were even two or three who hissed. Such a reception seemed to intensify the feeling which once or twice already he had experienced, that somehow or other, he could not tell how or why, he stood apart and was different from the rest; and his vanity was hurt at the reflections that had been thrown on his powers and his pluck and at the very small importance Orr’s easiness plainly showed was attached to what he did.

Meanwhile Piggy and Tub, with jackets and waistcoats off, were standing facing each other, and Orr and his companion, taking their places, each behind his man, a ring was formed