ng 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.

CHAPTER XXXIX

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 sovereign.

When one has been in the habit of confining one's lendings and
borrowings to sixpences and shillings, a request for a sovereign 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," said Mike. "As a matter of fact, I do happen to have a
quid. You can freeze on to it, if you like. But it's about all I have
got, so don't be shy about paying it back."

Jellicoe was profuse in his thanks, and disappeared in a cloud of
gratitude.

Mike felt that Fate was treating him badly. Being kept in on Saturday
meant that he would be unable to turn out for Little Borlock against
Claythorpe, the return match. In the previous game he had scored
ninety-eight, and there was a lob bowler in the Claythorpe ranks whom
he was particularly anxious to meet again. Having to yield a sovereign
to Jellicoe--why on earth did the man want all that?--meant that,
unless a carefully worded letter to his brother Bob at Oxford had the
desired effect, he would be practically penniless for weeks.

In a gloomy frame of mind he sat down to write to Bob, who was playing
regularly for the 'Varsity this season, and only the previous week had
made a century against Sussex, so might be expected to be in a
sufficiently softened mood to advance the needful. (Which, it may be
stated at once, he did, by return of post.)

Mike was struggling with the opening sentences of this letter--he was
never a very ready writer--when Stone and Robinson burst into the
room.

Mike put down his pen, and got up. He was in warlike mood, and
welcomed the intrusion. If Stone and Robinson wanted battle, they
should have