irst he hardly knew what to do with himself, he was so altogether used
up by the discovery just made. He drifted up and down some unknown streets
for an hour or two--or stood still on corners--he never was very sure which.
And then at last he went downtown and took a drink in a half-dazed way;
and because it was quite two months since his last indulgence, its
suggestion was potent.

The pity--or rather, the apparent pity--of what followed!

Burnett was Sundaying at the ancestral castle; and Burnett wasn't the
warning sort, anyhow. He was always tow and pitch for any species of
flame. So his absence counted for nothing in the crisis.

And what ensued was a crisis--a crisis with a vengeance.

That tear upon which Aunt Mary's nephew went was something lurid and
awful. It lasted until Monday, and then its owner returned to college, as
ill of body and as embittered of spirit as it was in him to be. The
lightsome devil who had ruled him up to his meeting with Mrs. Rosscott
resumed its sway with terrible force. The authorities showed a tendency to
patience because young Denham had appeared to reform lately and had been
working hard; but young Denham felt no thankful sentiments for their
leniency, and proved his position shortly.

There was a man named Tweedwell whom circumstances threw directly in the
path of destruction. Tweedwell was an inoffensive mortal who was studying
for the ministry. He was progressive in his ideas, and believed that a
clergyman, to hold a great influence, should know his world. He thought
that knowledge of the world was to be gained by skirting the outside edge
of every species of worldliness. The result of this course of action was
not what it should have been, for Tweedwell was an easy mark for all who
wanted fun, and the consciousness of his innocence so little accelerated
the pace at which he got out of the way that he was always being called to
account for what he hadn't done.

The Saturday night after his Saturday in town, Jack concocted a piece of
deviltry which was as dangerous as it was foolish. The result was that an
explosion took place, and the author of the gun-powder plot had all the
skin on both hands blistered. Burnett, in escaping, fell and broke his
collarbone and two ribs. The house in which the affair took place caught
fire, and was badly damaged. And Tweedwell was arrested on the strongest
kind of circumstantial evidence, and had to answer for the whole.
Naturally, in the inv