"Rubbish!" retorted Robin. "Fresh air never harmed anyone. Better to shiver than be baked alive. I feel like a bread-loaf in an oven."
"I can't help that," snapped Osbody. "I hate to sit in a draught. What do you other fellows say?"
The Squirms unanimously agreed with their leader. It would, they said, be like courting almost certain death from influenza or pneumonia to open the windows on such a night.
"Well," said Robin, "it comes to this: we want air and you want suffocation. What's the polite rule in these cases? The visiting team is given the choice. Are you for ventilation, my Merry Men?"
"Ay, ay, Robin!" the Merry Men cried, with one voice.
"Right you are," cried Robin easily. "There's only one thing to do, then. We'll leave the tournament as it is, and call it a draw."
The Squirms stared at one another in blank consternation. To be robbed of their sweeping victory in this freakish fashion was a misfortune not to be borne.
"Tommy-rot!" exclaimed Osbody. "We haven't played a single chess-game yet."
"Funkpots!" sneered Grain. "You're afraid to see it through."
For answer Robin pulled down the upper part of a big window and his Merry Men followed his lead, flooding the over-heated room with sweet night air.
"There, that's better!" cried Robin. "Carry on with the chess."
The Squirms were outmanoeuvred. They had either to abandon full and complete victory or finish the tournament in a torrent of air which swept their score-cards to the floor. So, with sinking hearts, and the sourest of faces, they turned up their coat-collars and decided to "stick it".
At chess most of the Merry Men went down like ninepins, some of them having difficulty in distinguishing knights from bishops.
Once again the Squirms swept the board. Allan a Dale and Robin, by dint of mental gymnastics which made their heads swim, wrung draws from Vinns and Osbody respectively; but these partial successes only threw the general rout of the Merry Men into stronger relief. Just as they had expected, they were decisively and ignominiously thrashed.
Immediately the Squirms became a Mutual Admiration Society. Hands were wrung and shoulders were slapped, and in every way the Merry Men were made to feel that they were very small potatoes indeed. In unutterable disgust at such exceedingly bad taste, they trooped to the door.