e was suddenly reminded of them all, by the
vision of Dick darting into the shop.

"Webster," said that youth, in tones of breathless entreaty, "_do_ let
us off this once! Coote really never took the pencil, and if you have
him taken up, it will be ruination! I shall get in a row for coming
down now, but I couldn't help. We'll do anything if you don't take
Coote up. I'll get my father to pay you what you like. Will you,
please, Webster?"

The boy delivered this appeal so rapidly and earnestly that Webster had
no time to stop him; but when Dick paused, he said:--

"Make yourself comfortable, Mr Richardson, I've found the pencil."

Dick literally shouted, as he sprang forward and seized the bookseller's
hand:--

"Found it! Oh, what a brick you are!"

"Yes; it had fallen into that hole, and I just turned it out. Lucky for
you and your friend it did. And I'm not sorry, either, for I'd no fancy
for putting any of you to trouble; but I was bound to protect myself,
you see."

"Of course, of course. You're a regular trump, Webster," cried Dick,
too delighted to feel at all critical of the way in which the bookseller
was extricating himself from his dilemma. "I'm so glad; so will they
be. Thanks, awfully, Webster. I say, I must get a _Templeton Observer_
for the good of the shop."

And he flung down a sixpence in the bigness of his heart, and taking the
newspaper, darted back to Templeton in a state of jubilation and
happiness, which made passers-by, as he rushed down the street, turn
round and look after him.

In ten minutes Coote and Heathcote were as radiant as he; and that
afternoon the Templeton "Tub" echoed with the boisterous glee of the
three heroes, as they played leap-frog with one another in the water,
and set the rocks almost aglow with the sunshine of their countenances.

But Nemesis is proverbially a cruel old lady. She sports with her
victims like a cat with a mouse. And just when the poor scared things,
having escaped one terrible swoop of her hand, take breath, she comes
down remorselessly with the other hand, and dashes away hope and breath
at a blow.

And so it fared with our unlucky heroes. No sooner had they escaped the
fangs of Mr Webster, than they found themselves writhing in the
clutches of a new terror, twice as bad and twice as awkward.

In the first flush of escape, Dick had crammed the _Templeton Observer_,
which he had paid sixpence for in celebration of the finding of