h a few of the milder spirits, such as Hughes and
Frere, held their breath in dreadful foreboding, while the unconscious
Mr. Peace roared:

"Now, then, how long do you mean to stay in there? The clock's on the
strike. I mark every boy who isn't in his place when it stops! Do you
hear me? Do you hear me, I say?"

"No," responded Cadbury, without thinking. Then, poking his head out,
"What are we to do, sir, please? We can't find our books. Everything is
changed. It's worse than a spring cleaning. Won't you look and see,
sir?"

[Illustration]

Before the invitation could be answered, there was an impatient knock of
authority in the school-room--a rap of knuckles upon a desk--and
everyone knew what that meant. Mr. West had entered, and was being kept
waiting.

With what books they had managed to grab--some the right ones, many the
wrong--the boarders slunk red-faced to their places, there to realize
their luck, and perchance to discover their mistakes. Cadbury had no
book at all. Green found himself hugging Toppin's _Little Reader_
instead of _Elementary Physics_; and Hallett might make what use he
could of the March Hare's _English Conversation_ when he came to open
it.

The pages of the masters' registers fairly bristled with black marks
that unhappy morning. Grey was for bringing the enemy to book, and
reporting his evil devices, but his elders quashed the proposal.

"You silly duffer! As if we couldn't deal with them ourselves. Wait till
lunch. There's a rod in pickle for them, and they know it."

Yes, the day-boys had a suspicion that there was a lively time
approaching, but so set-up were they by their recent victory that they
quite looked forward to it.

Jack was less happy. He read the resolve in the boarders' faces, and
knew that they saw no joke in that morning's events. And he wondered
where the war would end. It seemed the final upset of all those little
efforts towards harmony and good-temper to which he had given himself
from the hour of his arrival at Brincliffe.

Among the junior scholars sat a dark-complexioned boy with very white
teeth. It was the March Hare. To-day there was a queer gleam in his
eyes, and a flush of carmine in his sallow cheeks. His _English
Conversation_ was not to be found when wanted, and the fact called down
upon him a sharp rebuke from a master, but his face expressed no regret.

"There must have been a ringleader in this," remarked another boarder in
his hearing durin