tened by the sense of a task completed,
and I began to think of someone else besides myself.

"I say, Doe," I asked, "aren't you going to tell me where you were
going when you joined that knock-kneed idiot Freedham?"

"No," announced Doe.

"But look here," I began, and was just about to tell him that
Freedham was an unwholesome creature who had mysterious fits like a
demoniac, when I remembered my promise of silence: so I went on
lamely: "You will tell me one day, won't you?"

"No," he repeated, feeling very firm and adamant and Napoleonic.

"But, my darling blighter, why not?"

"Because I don't choose to."

"Then you're a pig. But you might, Doe. Out with it. There's nobody
but me to hear you. And I understand."

"No."

"Well, tell me, how did you get back so early?"

"You see," answered Doe, cryptically, "the sun came out; and when
the sun came out, I came in."

It was a romantic sentence such as would delight this rudimentary
poet. Why he condescended to break his mighty silence even to this
extent, I don't know. It was perhaps a boyish love of hinting at a
secret which he mustn't disclose. An awful idea struck me. I say it
was awful because, though stirring in itself, it brought the thought
that I was left out of it.

"Oh, Doe, have you--have you a SECRET SOCIETY?"

"No."

"Here, hang me, Doe," I said, "you're not only a shocking bad
conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's
opinion. That'll be a guinea, please."

And I got up to take the lines to Fillet.

"I say, Rupert," said Doe, blushing and looking away.

"Well?" I asked, with my hand on the door-knob.

"I say," he stuttered, "you--you might just mention to Radley that I
dictated _all_ the lines. It would sort of--I mean--Oh, but you
needn't, if you don't want to."

Sec.3

That night there happened in Bramhall House one of those strange
events that are best chronicled in a few cold sentences. That night,
I say, while honest men and boys slept, Mr. Fillet sat up in bed and
listened. He distinctly heard movements in his study below. Jumping
up, he slided into his carpet slippers and crept downstairs. There
was a light in his study. He looked round the half-open door and saw
the back view of a boy in pyjamas. The whole incident is much too
sinister for me to remind you frivolously that little Carpet
Slippers was once again round his corner. He began: "Wh-what are you
doing?" and the boy at once did what any proper