ought of it?"

"Young Leigh gave the name," said Neave.

"Good for you, Leigh," shouted Spots. "You're keeping up the
reputation of the Leopard's den."

Naturally that seemed to Martin the supreme moment of the whole superb
affair.

VI

At one o'clock in the afternoon of December the twentieth a motor car
left Tavistock station and tore fiercely westward until it reached the
excellent village of Cherton Widger. Then it panted up an abrupt hill
and, passing a lodge, ran up a short drive to The Steading, a square
low-roofed house surrounded by irreproachable lawns that sloped away to
the coverts. The chauffeur descended and carried on to the steps a
portmanteau and a corded play-box. Martin, looking uncouthly smart in
a new overcoat (with a strap behind) and a bowler hat, stood rather
nervously by the door. He had come home for the holidays.

In the hall he met his aunt. He kissed her: or rather she kissed him.
His uncle burst out of his study and shook hands with him: his cousin
Margaret, aged fifteen, also appeared and shyly shook hands. It seemed
that his cousin Robert, aged seventeen, would not escape from Rugby
till to-morrow. Everybody began to ask him questions which he
mechanically answered.

"You must have left Elfrey very early," said his aunt.

"About seven."

"And in December too! Had you got to?"

"No; but everybody does."

These well-meaning people did not realise that you do not stay at
school after term has ended. Though you perish with cold and lack of
sleep, the first possible train is the only train. Martin had secured
an hour's sleep, breakfasted at six, and caught his train at seven.
All the way to Exeter he had smoked. About this smoking he had felt
afraid, for here was another new experience: but everyone else in the
carriage had smoked and there was no escape. One of the boys had dealt
in cigars, another produced a pipe which he cleaned extensively and
smoked but little. Martin had kept with the majority to cigarettes and
had laboured to disguise the swift nervous action of the novice beneath
the languid air of the connoisseur. One thing at any rate was certain:
he had not been sick. By the time he reached Exeter he was feeling a
little queer, but with a supreme effort he had staved off a disaster
which would have been fatal to his reputation. And now he was
intensely hungry and found cold chicken and ham a very pleasant
substitute for the 'roast or boiled' wit