"No."

"I'm going to London."

"_What?_"

"Don't look at me like that, you silly old ass! It's not--not what you
think," he laughed nervously. "I have bet Scaife twenty-five pounds, the
amount of my debt in fact, that the bill-of-fare of to-night's supper at
the Carlton Hotel will be handed to him after Chapel to-morrow morning.
I bike up to town, and bike back. If I don't go this Saturday, I have
one more chance before the term is over. That's all."

"That's all," repeated John, stupefied.

"If you can show me an easier way to make a 'pony,' I'll be obliged to
you."

"Scaife egged you on to this piece of folly?"

"No, he didn't."

"You may as well make a clean breast of it."

Bit by bit John extracted the facts. Behind them, of course, stood
Scaife, loving evil for evil's sake, planting evil, gleaning evil,
deliberately setting about the devil's work. Desmond, it appeared, had
persuaded Scaife not to go to town till the Lord's match was over. Since
the match Scaife had spent two nights in London, whetting an inordinate
appetite for forbidden fruit; exciting in Desmond also, not an appetite
for the fruit itself, but for the mad excitement of a perilous
adventure. Then, when the thoughtless "I'd like a lark of that sort" had
been spoken, came the derisive answer, "You haven't the nerve for it."
And then again the subtle leading of an ardent and self-willed nature
into the morass, Scaife pretending to dissuade a friend, entreating him
to consider the risk, urging him to go to bed, as if he were a
headstrong child. And finally Desmond's challenge, "Bet you I have the
nerve," and its acceptance, protestingly, by the other, and permission
given that John should be told.

"And it's to-night?"

"I mean to have that bill-of-fare. Do you think I'd back out now?"

In his mind's eye, our poor John was gazing down a long lane with no
turning at the end of it. Could he make his friend believe that Scaife
had brought this thing to pass from no other motive than wishing to hurt
mortally an enemy by the hand of a friend? No, never would such an
ingenuous youth as Caesar accept, or even listen to, such an abominable
explanation.

"Good night," said John.

"I see you're rather sick with me, Jonathan. Remember, you made me
speak. To-morrow morning we'll have a good laugh over it. We'll walk to
the Haunted House, and I'll tell my tale. I shall be on my way in less
than an hour."

John went back to his room. The necess