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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
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