line beginning to
come around his mouth. It wasn't pleasant to see his reckoning quite so
near.

"Then you know where it is," declared Joel.

"And give it to the beggar," cried several of the boys, with whom
Jenkins was by no means a favorite.

"Give it to him worse than you did last term, Joe," called some one on
the edge of the circle closing around the two.

"I'm going to," nodded Joel, every nerve in his body tingling to begin.
"Come on, Jenk, if you won't tell where you've put my racket."

"He's afraid," said the boy who had advised the more severe pommelling,
"old 'fraid-cat!"

Jenkins, his knees knocking together miserably, but with a wild rage in
his heart at these words, struck out blindly to meet Joel's sturdy
little fists, and to find his Waterloo.

In the midst of the din and confusion that this encounter produced,
steps that could never by any possibility be mistaken for those of a
schoolboy struck upon their ears.

The circle of spectators flew wide, and before Joel and Jenkins realized
what was coming, a good two dozen hands were laid on their collars, and
they were dragged apart, and hauled into separate rooms, the rest of the
boys scattering successfully. Tom Beresford fled with the rest, and the
long hall was cleared.

"Boys!" the voice of the matron, Mrs. Fox, rang down the deserted, long
hall, as she looked up from the stairway. "Humph! they are quiet enough
now." She gave a restful sigh, and went down again. Jones and his colic
were just so much extra on a terribly busy day.

"What did you fellows touch me for?" roared Joel, lifting a bloody nose.
In his own room, Jenkins was in that state that recognizes any
interruption as a blessing.

"Old Fox would have caught you, if we hadn't rushed you both," cried the
boys.

Tom Beresford worked his way up to say close to Joel's ear, "Don't
speak, get into your room; I'll tell you where it is," then melted off
to the outer circle of boys.

Joel looked up, gave a little nod, then broke away from the boys, and
dashed to Jenkins' door.

"See here,"--he flung the words out,--"you've got to finish sometime
when Mrs. Fox isn't round."

Jenkins, who was under the impression that he had had quite enough, was
made to say, "All right;" something in the boys' faces making it seem
imperative that he should do so.

Quite pleased, Joel withdrew as suddenly as he had come.

Meanwhile, up the stairs, two at a time, came Davie, singing at the
memory