affair at Camp Hill Bottom.

"The offence being," said the magistrate, "that the boys, Tempest among
them, were out, on the afternoon of a holiday, half an hour from the
school, with only a one quarter of an hour to get back. You punished
the boys, I understand."

"Yes."

"And Tempest took his punishment with the rest."

"Yes."

"I suppose it is a special indignity to a senior boy, captain of his
house, to be paraded for extra drill with a lot of small boys, eh, Dr
England?"

"I should consider it so," said the doctor.

"I did not feel myself called upon to make any difference," said Mr
Jarman.

"Apparently not. And on account of this affair, you say you expected
Tempest would attempt to defy you last night?"

Mr Jarman bit his lips and did not reply.

Tempest resumed his questions with a coolness that surprised us.

"You were smoking, I think, Mr Jarman?"

"What if I was?"

"Nothing, only I wanted the magistrate to know it. And you locked me
into the gymnasium for half an hour till I kicked myself out. I say you
had no right to do that. What did you do while I was inside?"

"I walked up and down."

"Did you try to stop me when I got out?"

"No."

"Why?" asked Tempest, with a sneer that made us all contrast his broad
shoulders with the master's slouch.

"I decided to deal with the matter to-day."

"How did you see what I had done to the door in the dark?"

"I saw by the light of a match."

"You say it was two minutes after I left that the explosion took place,
and immediately after you left?"

"That's what I said."

"And you were striking matches during the interval?"

"Yes."

"And yet you suggest that it was I who blew the place up?"

"I say it was suspicious, knowing your frame of mind and the passion you
were in at the time."

"How could I blow up the place without explosives?"

"There must have been some there already."

"He didn't know anything about that! That was our affair, wasn't it,
you chaps?" blurted out Trimble.

"Rather," chimed in all of us.

The sensation in the court at this announcement may be better imagined
than described.

The magistrate put on his glasses and stared at us. Mr Jarman looked
startled. The doctor looked bewildered.

"You see, it was this way," said Trimble, who had been working himself
up to the point all through the previous cross-examination. "We had--"

"Wait a moment, my boy," said the magistrate. But the witness was too
e