and the boys knew it; but
McTurk cut through the frothing sentence, the others echoing:

"I appeal to the Head, sir."

"I appeal to the head, sir."

"I appeal to the Head, sir."

It was their unquestioned right. Drunkenness meant expulsion after a
public flogging. They had been accused of it. The case was the Head's,
and the Head's alone.

"Thou hast appealed unto Caesar: unto Caesar shalt thou go." They had
heard that sentence once or twice before in their careers. "None the
less," said King, uneasily, "you would be better advised to abide by our
decision, my young friends."

"Are we allowed to associate with the rest of the school till we see the
Head, sir?" said McTurk to his house-master, disregarding King. This at
once lifted the situation to its loftiest plane. Moreover, it meant no
work, for moral leprosy was strictly quarantined, and the Head never
executed judgment till twenty-four cold hours later.

"Well--er--if you persist in your defiant attitude," said King, with a
loving look at the canes under Foxy's arm. "There is no alternative."

Ten minutes later the news was over the whole school. Stalky and Co.
had fallen at last--fallen by drink. They had been drinking. They had
returned blind-drunk from a hut. They were even now lying hopelessly
intoxicated on the dormitory floor. A few bold spirits crept up to look,
and received boots about the head from the criminals.

"We've got him--got him on the Caudine Toasting-fork!" said Stalky,
after those hints were taken. "King'll have to prove his charges up to
the giddy hilt."

"Too much ticklee, him bust," Beetle quoted from a book of his reading.
"Didn't I say he'd go pop if we lat un bide?"

"No prep., either, O ye incipient drunkards," said McTurk, "and it's
trig night, too. Hullo! Here's our dear friend Foxy. More tortures,
Foxibus?"

"I've brought you something to eat, young gentlemen," said the Sergeant
from behind a crowded tray. Their wars had ever been waged without
malice, and a suspicion floated in Foxy's mind that boys who allowed
themselves to be tracked so easily might, perhaps, hold something in
reserve. Foxy had served through the Mutiny, when early and accurate
information was worth much.

"I--I noticed you 'adn't 'ad anything to eat, an' I spoke to Gumbly, an'
he said you wasn't exactly cut off from supplies. So I brought up this.
It's your potted 'am tin, ain't it, Mr. Corkran?"

"Why, Foxibus, you're a brick," said Stalky. "I d