y, we can't let that poor devil run about all night in the park
with that picture," said Grainger. "Let's catch him and explain we got
into his rooms by mistake."

"I hope he won't throw himself into the river or anything," murmured
Sinclair anxious not to be involved in any affair that might spoil his
reputation for enjoying every rag without the least reproach ever
lighting upon him personally.

"I say, for goodness' sake, let's catch him," begged Michael, who had
visions of being sent to explain to a weeping mother in a mean street
that her son had died in defending her enlargement.

Out into the moon-washed park the pursuers tumbled, and through its
verdurous deeps of giant elms they hurried in search of the outlaw.

"It's like a scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor," Michael said to
Avery, and as he spoke he caught a glimpse of the white-robed Smithers,
running like a young druid across a glade where the moonlight was
undimmed by boughs.

He called to Smithers to go back to his rooms, but whether he went at
once or huddled in some hollow tree half the night Michael never knew,
for by this time the unwonted stampeding of the deer and the sound of
voices in the Fellows' sacred pleasure-ground had roused the Dean, who
supported by the nocturnal force of the college servants was advancing
against the six disturbers of the summer night. The next hour was an
entrancing time of hot pursuit and swift evasion, of crackling dead
branches and sudden falls in lush grass, of stealthy procedure round
tree-trunks, and finally of scaling a high wall, dropping heavily down
into the rose-beds of the Warden's garden and by one supreme effort of
endurance going to ground in St. Cuthbert's quad.

"By Jove, that was a topping rag," puffed Lonsdale, as he filled six
glasses with welcome drink. "I think old Shadbolt recognized me. He
said: 'It's no use you putting your coat over your 'ead, sir, because I
knows you by your gait.'"

"I wonder what happened to Smithers," said Michael.

"Damned good thing if he fell into the Cher," Avery asserted. "I don't
know why on earth they want to have a bounder like that at St. Mary's."

"A bounder like what?" asked Castleton, who had sloped into the room
during Avery's expression of opinion.

Castleton was greeted with much fervor, and a disjointed account of the
evening's rag was provided for his entertainment.

"But why don't you let that poor devil alone?" demanded the listener.

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