had definitely won the race, and consequently they were
both losers to a considerable extent.

They had counted almost certainly on a second race, but now that this
had been decided against, their wrath and dismay knew no bounds. They
spent the evening in vituperations and angry discussion, and ended it in
what was very little short of a downright quarrel. Indeed, if young
Wyndham had not opportunely arrived on the scene shortly before bedtime
and created a diversion, the quarrel might have come to blows.

Wyndham burst into the room suddenly.

"Has either of you seen my knife?" he enquired; "I've lost it."

"Have you?" inquired Silk.

"Yes; I fancy I left it here last night. I say, have you heard
Parrett's won't accept a new race?"

"I wonder why?" asked Silk.

"Because they say they won't have out their boat again till the fellow's
found who cut the lines."

"Well, I don't blame them--do you, Gilks?" said Silk. "I suppose
there's no idea who he is?"

"Not a bit," said Wyndham; "I wish to goodness there was. Some fool, I
expect, who's been betting against Parrett's."

"I could show you a fool who's been betting on Parrett's," said Silk,
"and who's decidedly up a tree now! I say, young 'un, I suppose you
couldn't lend me a sov. till the end of the term?"

"I've only got half-a-sov. in the world," said Wyndham.

"Well, I'll try and make that do, thanks," said Silk.

Wyndham pulled out his purse rather ruefully and handed him the coin.

"Mind you let me have it back, please," he said, "as I'm saving up for a
racket. And I say," added he, leaving, "if you do come across my knife,
let's have it, will you?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

BOSHER, HIS DIARY.

Probably no two boys in all Willoughby were more excited over the result
of the famous boat-race than Parson and his dear friend Telson. And it
is hardly necessary to state that this agitation arose from totally
conflicting reasons.

Parson's indignation found solace in the most sweeping and vehement
invectives his vocabulary could afford against the unknown author of the
dastardly outrage upon his rudder-line. By an easy effort of
imagination he included the whole schoolhouse, root and branch, in his
anathemas, and by a very trifling additional effort he discovered that
the objects of his censure were guilty, every one of them, not only of
this particular crime, but of every crime in the Newgate Calendar, from
picking pockets to murder. He fully