The
war, in short, raged fiercely; but soon, as Diggs had told them, all
the better fellows in the fifth gave up trying to fag them, and public
feeling began to set against Flashman and his two or three intimates,
and they were obliged to keep their doings more secret, but being
thorough bad fellows, missed no opportunity of torturing in private.
Flashman was an adept in all ways, but above all in the power of saying
cutting and cruel things, and could often bring tears to the eyes of
boys in this way, which all the thrashings in the world wouldn't have
wrung from them.
And as his operations were being cut short in other directions, he now
devoted himself chiefly to Tom and East, who lived at his own door, and
would force himself into their study whenever he found a chance, and sit
there, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a companion, interrupting all
their work, and exulting in the evident pain which every now and then he
could see he was inflicting on one or the other.
The storm had cleared the air for the rest of the house, and a better
state of things now began than there had been since old Brooke had left;
but an angry, dark spot of thunder-cloud still hung over the end of the
passage where Flashman's study and that of East and Tom lay.
He felt that they had been the first rebels, and that the rebellion had
been to a great extent successful; but what above all stirred the
hatred and bitterness of his heart against them was that in the frequent
collisions which there had been of late they had openly called him
coward and sneak.
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