p to a certain
point, but this plea wouldn't quite wash.

"Most likely they'll find it. It may have drifted round to Birkens, or
some place like that. It'll be all right, Georgie."

But the thoughts of that unlucky boat haunted their peace. That Tom
White had only got his deserts they never questioned; but they would
have been more comfortable if that loop had slipped itself.

Days went on, and still no tidings reached them. The bills faced them
wherever they went, and once, as they passed the boat-house with a crowd
of other fellows, they received a shock by seeing Tom White himself
sitting and smoking on a bench, and looking contemplatingly out to sea.

"There's Tom White," said one of the group. "I say," shouted he, "have
you found your boat, Tom?"

Tom looked up and scanned the group. Our heroes' hearts were in their
boots as his eyes met theirs. But to their relief he did not know them.
A half-tipsy man on a dark night is not a good hand at remembering
faces.

"Found her? No, I aren't, young gentleman," said he.

"Hard lines. Hope you'll get her back," said the boy. "I say, do you
think any one stole her?"

"May be, may be not," replied the boatman.

"Jolly rum thing about that boat," said the spokesman of the party, as
the boys continued their walk.

"I expect it got adrift somehow," said another.

"I don't know," said the first. "I was speaking to a bobby about her:
he says they think she was stolen; and fancy they've got a clue to the
fellow."

Heathcote stumbled for no apparent reason at this particular moment, and
it was quite amusing to see the concern on Dick's face as he went to the
rescue.

"Jolly low trick," continued the boy, who appeared to interest himself
so deeply in Tom's loss, "if any one really took the boat away. Tom
will be ruined."

"Who do they think went off with her?" asked another.

"They don't say; but they're rather good at running things down, are our
police. Do you recollect the way they bowled out the fellow who tried
to burn the boat-house last year, and got him six months?"

This police gossip was so alarming to our two heroes, that they gave up
taking walks along the beach, and retired to the privacy of the school
boundaries, where there was no lack of occupation, indoor and out, to
relieve the monotony of life.

A week after the Grandcourt match, a boy called Braider came up to Dick
and asked to speak to him. Braider was in the Fourth, and Dick k