got back his foot, and Hooker got his arm once more over the door. The
former raised a cry of "Cad hanging on!" The latter shouted, "Whip
behind!" The occupants of coach six yelled, "Chuck him over!" And
putting one thing with another, the town boy decided that he would be
more comfortable on the pavement than where he was. So he dropped off,
leaving his hat behind him, which trophy was immediately seized and
passed aloft, amid universal triumph, and displayed proudly on the top
of a bat, on coach five, until the cavalcade was clear of the town.

"Who scragged that fellow?" asked Hooker, as soon as the campaign was
over, looking up and down.

"I don't know," said Duffield. "Is there any one inside?"

Dick, who had been gradually trying to edge back to his retreat, deemed
it prudent to make a clean breast of it at once, while the two "step"
men owed him their thanks.

"I say, Hooker," said he, putting up his head behind the pile of wraps
in a manner that made the gentleman addressed almost fall off with
fright, "don't say anything--I scragged him. Heathcote and I wanted so
awfully to see the match. Keep it dark, I say."

Hooker put his head into the window, and whistled.

"You'll get in a frightful row," said he, consolingly; "never mind, I'll
say nothing. Cover up, and don't let the chaps see you."

They took his advice as cheerfully as they could, and even endured
pleasantly the occasional pea-shooter practice with which, by way of
enlivening their solitude, he was good enough to favour them.

They had an anxious drive on the whole. For besides Hooker's pea-
shooter and the dismal prophecies he kept calling in to them of the
terrible fate that awaited them on their return to Templeton, they found
the dust and heat very trying. All that, however, was as nothing to the
panic produced by a sudden rumour of a shower, and the possible descent
of the whole of coach five into the interior. Happily for them Jupiter
Pluvius changed his mind at the last moment, and sheered off. But the
two minutes they spent in expecting him were calculated considerably to
curtail the natural life of both.

It was hard lines, too, to hear all the festivities going on above and
be able to take no part in them. They dared not even sit up for fear of
becoming visible to the occupants of the box-seat of coach six, who had
a full view of their interior. So they lay low for two mortal hours,
and by the time Grandcourt was rea