tion, and, unless
he is a man of action, practically helpless.

Stone and Robinson felt secure. Taking it all around, they felt that
they would just as soon play for Lower Borlock as for the school. The
bowling of the opposition would be weaker in the former case, and the
chance of making runs greater. To a certain type of cricketer runs are
runs, wherever and however made.

The result of all this was that Adair, turning out with the team next
morning for fielding practice, found himself two short. Barnes was among
those present, but of the other two representatives of Outwood's house
there were no signs.

Barnes, questioned on the subject, had no information to give, beyond
the fact that he had not seen them about anywhere. Which was not a great
help. Adair proceeded with the fielding practice without further delay.

At breakfast that morning he was silent and apparently rapt in thought.
Mr. Downing, who sat at the top of the table with Adair on his right,
was accustomed at the morning meal to blend nourishment of the body with
that of the mind. As a rule he had ten minutes with the daily paper
before the bell rang, and it was his practice to hand on the results of
his reading to Adair and the other house prefects, who, not having seen
the paper, usually formed an interested and appreciative audience.
Today, however, though the house prefects expressed varying degrees of
excitement at the news that Sheppard had made a century against
Gloucestershire, and that a butter famine was expected in the United
States, these world-shaking news items seemed to leave Adair cold. He
champed his bread and marmalade with an abstracted air.

He was wondering what to do in the matter of Stone and Robinson.

Many captains might have passed the thing over. To take it for granted
that the missing pair had overslept themselves would have been a safe
and convenient way out of the difficulty. But Adair was not the sort of
person who seeks for safe and convenient ways out of difficulties. He
never shirked anything, physical or moral.

He resolved to interview the absentees.

It was not until after school that an opportunity offered itself. He
went across to Outwood's and found the two nonstarters in the senior day
room, engaged in the intellectual pursuit of kicking the wall and
marking the height of each kick with chalk. Adair's entrance coincided
with a record effort by Stone, which caused the kicker to overbalance
and stagger back