ld chum.

"Look here, Dig, old man, I don't want to have a row with you, no more
do you. I vote we don't."

"Hang a row," said Dig. "But it seems to me, Arthur, you don't care
twopence whether the chap's found out or not."

Arthur's face clouded over.

"Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. I don't see we're called upon to show
them up."

"But look what a mess the house is in till they're bowled out. We'll
never get hold of a bat all the season."

"Jolly bad luck, I know, but we must lump it, Dig. You must drop
fooling about with your clues. Don't get in a wax, now. I've got my
reasons."

"Whatever do you mean? Do you know who it was, then? Come in! Who's
there?"

The intruder was the Baby Jukes, who carried half a dozen letters in his
hand, one of which he presented to the two chums.

"One for you," said he. "They're all the same. Wake gave Bateson and
me a penny a-piece for writing them out, and we knocked off twenty. He
says he'd have sent you one a-piece, only he knows you've not two ideas
between you. Catch hold."

And he departed, smiling sweetly, with his tongue in his cheek, just in
time to avoid a Caesar flung by the indignant baronet at his head.

"Those kids are getting a drop too much," said Dig. "They've no more
respect for their betters than Smiley has. What's this precious
letter?"

The letter was addressed to "Messrs. Herapath and Oakshott," and was
signed by Wake of the Fifth, although written in the inelegant hand of
Master Jukes the Baby.

"`Central Criminal Court, Grandcourt. The assizes will open this
evening in the forum at 6.30 sharp. You are hereby summoned on urgent
business. Hereof fail not at your peril.'"

"What do that mean?" again inquired Dig. "What right has Wake to
threaten us?"

"Don't you see, Wake, whose father is a pettifogging lawyer, is going to
get up a make-believe law court--I heard him talk about it last term--
instead of the regular debating evening. The best of it is, we kids
shall all be in it, instead of getting stuck on the back bench to clap,
as we generally are."

"He's no business to tell us to fail not at our peril," growled Dig.
"What will they do?"

"Try somebody for murder, perhaps, or--why, of course!" exclaimed
Arthur, "they'll have somebody tried for that Bickers row!"

"By the way," said Dig, returning to the great question on his mind,
"you never told me if you really knew who did it."

Arthur's face clouded again.

"H