blankly at one another
with lengthened faces.

"I couldn't believe any fellow could be such a cad," said Dick.

"It's jolly awkward!" said Heathcote. "You know he was awfully civil to
me in London, and it does seem low to be cutting him now."

"Civil, be hanged!" said Dick. "He tried to get hold of you to make a
cad of you, that's what he did; and you were precious near being one,
too, when you came back, weren't you?"

"Was I?" asked the humble Georgie.

"Rather," said Coote; "everybody said so."

"Well, of course," said Georgie, "if that's what he was driving at, it
doesn't matter so much."

"Except that it makes him all the bigger a cad."

"What on earth shall we do about the other thing?" asked Georgie.

"The row? We must cheek it, that's all. If he does us over the
'Sociable' election, we can't be helped."

"And suppose he gets us transported?"

"Can't do it, I tell you; my father will be up here, you know."

There was a pause, and the "Firm" walked on. Then Georgie said:--

"I say, what does he mean about the stories I told about you and Coote.
I never told any stories, that I remember. I never had any to tell."

"Ah, I was wondering what that meant," said Dick. "He speaks as if
you'd been blabbing all sorts of things."

"I really don't think I ever did," said Heathcote, ransacking his
memory. "I may have said once I thought Coote was rather an ass, but
that was all."

"What made you tell him that?" said Coote.

"He asked me if I didn't think so," said Georgie, apologetically, "and
of course I was bound to say what I thought."

"Rather," said Coote.

"But he's telling crams about you, Dick," said Georgie; "I'm quite sure
of that. He used to try and make out you were a sneak and a prig; and
perhaps I believed him once or twice, but that was while I was a cad,
you know."

"Oh, yes, that's all right!" said Dick, putting his arm in that of his
friend.

Pledge would have had very little consolation out of this short
discussion, and if for the next two days he sat up in his study
expecting that every footstep belonged to the "Firm" on its way to
capitulate, he must have been sorely disappointed. Capitulation was the
one consideration which had never once entered the heads of the honest
fraternity.

That afternoon the town of Templeton was startled by an incident, which
had it come to the ears of our heroes, as they sat and groaned over
their "Select Dialogues of the Dead," would ha