etly from the room, everybody."

The meeting dispersed.

"Jackson and Wilson, come here. What's the meaning of this disgraceful
conduct? Put that dog out of the room, Jackson."

Mike removed the yelling Sammy and shut the door on him.

"Well, Wilson?"

"Please, sir, I was playing with a clockwork rat--"

"What business have you to be playing with clockwork rats?"

"Then I remembered," said Mike, "that I had left my Horace in my desk,
so I came in--"

"And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things,
"the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so he came
in, too."

"I met Sammy on the gravel outside and he followed me."

"I tried to collar him, but when you told me to come in, sir, I had to
let him go, and he came in after the rat."

It was plain to Mr. Downing that the burden of sin was shared equally by
both culprits. Wilson had supplied the rat, Mike the dog; but Mr.
Downing liked Wilson and disliked Mike. Wilson was in the Fire Brigade,
frivolous at times, it was true, but nevertheless a member. Also he kept
wicket for the school. Mike was a member of the Archaeological Society,
and had refused to play cricket.

Mr. Downing allowed these facts to influence him in passing sentence.

"One hundred lines, Wilson," he said. "You may go."

Wilson departed with the air of a man who has had a great deal of fun,
and paid very little for it.

Mr. Downing turned to Mike. "You will stay in on Saturday afternoon,
Jackson; it will interfere with your Archaeological studies, I fear, but
it may teach you that we have no room at Sedleigh for boys who spend
their time loafing about and making themselves a nuisance. We are a keen
school; this is no place for boys who do nothing but waste their time.
That will do, Jackson."

And Mr. Downing walked out of the room. In affairs of this kind a master
has a habit of getting the last word.

10

ACHILLES LEAVES HIS TENT

They say misfortunes never come singly. As Mike sat brooding over his
wrongs in his study, after the Sammy incident, Jellicoe came into the
room, and, without preamble, asked for the loan of a pound.

When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a pound comes as
something of a blow.

"What on earth for?" asked Mike.

"I say, do you mind if I don't tell you? I don't want to tell anybody.
The fact is, I'm in a beastly hole."

"Oh, sorry,"