er side the loss had been even
greater. Tucker and Wibberly, the only two monitors engaged, were
completely doubled up, while the number of maimed and disabled Limpets
and juniors was nearly beyond counting.

So ended the great battle at the school gate, and it ended only just in
time, for as the schoolhouse boys finally gained their quarters, and the
enemy picked itself up and turned surlily schoolwards, the doctor and
his party arrived on the scene and gave a finishing touch to the rout.

That evening was a sore one for Willoughby. Sore not only in respect of
bruised bodies and swollen faces, but still more in the sense of
disappointment, suspicion, and foul play.

Among the most violent of the Parrett's the whole mystery of the thing
was perfectly clear. These philosophers could see it all from beginning
to end, and were astonished any one else should be so dull as not to see
it too.

"Of course, it's a regularly arranged thing," said Wibberly, whose face
was enveloped in a handkerchief and whose lips were unusually thick.
"They've vowed all along to keep their boat at the head of the river,
and they've managed it."

"Yes," said another. "They knew what they had to expect if Bloomfield
got there. I can see it all."

"But you don't mean to say," said Strutter, "the Premier," "that you
think any one of those fellows would do such a thing as cut our rope?"

"I don't know," said Wibberly. "I don't see why they shouldn't. I
don't fancy they'd stick at a trifle, the cads!"

"If Gilks had been in the boat," said another, "I could have believed it
of him, but he was as anxious for us to win as we were ourselves."

"No wonder; he and his friend Silk have been betting right and left on
us, I hear."

"Well, I suppose there's bound to be a new race," said Strutter.

"I don't know," replied Wibberly. "I'd be just as well pleased if
Bloomfield refused. The vile cheats!"

Bloomfield, be it said to his credit, was no party to these reckless
accusations. Mortified as he was beyond description, and disappointed
by the collapse of his ambition, he yet scouted the idea of any one of
his five rivals being guilty of so dirty a trick as the cutting of his
boat's rudder-line. At the same time he was as convinced as any one
that foul play had been at the bottom of the accident, and the
perpetrator of the mean act was undoubtedly a schoolhouse boy. What
mortified him most was that he did not feel as positive by any m