hing
hard, which he picked up and invoked Jupiter.

"What is it?" asked Penryhn.

"Findings, keepings," responded Simmonds.

"Let's look," said Penryhn. "Why, that is Buller's knife!"

"Ah, ah! how do you know that?"

"Why, it has a punch in it; he lent it me to punch a hole in my strap
when we got home from skating one day. It has his name engraved upon it
somewhere; there it is, look, on that plate--`T. Buller'."

"Like my luck!" sighed Simmonds; "I never found anything yet but what it
belonged to some other fellow."

"What was that you said, Penryhn, about Buller lending you his knife?"
asked Crawley, who was cutting threes on the new bit of ice. "What day
was it?"

"The day before the snow; yesterday week, that was."

"What time?"

"In the evening, just before supper, when I was cleaning up my skates
for next day. By Jove! I see what you are driving at. Buller has not
been any day since, so he must have dropped it when he came that night."

"Of course. Now, you and Simmonds run back to school, find Cookson, who
is senior master now the doctor's out, ask leave to go over to
Penredding, and cut there as hard as you can split."

The pair were off before he could finish his sentence.

The party assembled in Mr Elliot's library was the same as on the week
previously, with the addition of a detective, who had detected nothing,
and Mr Rabbits, who now testified that he saw skates hanging round
Buller's neck when he was getting in at the window. The question was
concerning a further remand, for the magistrate firmly refused to commit
the boy for trial on the evidence before them. "I grant that it is
suspicious; he was out late at night when he had no business to be, and
that same night a Weston boy was, almost to a certainty, seized by
Bradley in the coppice. But if one boy could get out another might, and
now it is proved that this one had his skates with him at the time. No
jury would convict on such evidence." He did not even like granting a
remand, but neither did he like to stand out too strongly against the
wishes of Lord Woodruff.

At this juncture voices were heard outside, and presently a constable
opened the door and said that two young gentlemen from Weston had
something to say.

"Found the real culprit, perhaps," muttered Lord Woodruff.

"Bring them in," said the magistrate, and Simmonds and Penryhn entered,
hot, excited, and still panting for breath.

"Please, sir, we have lea