your business entirely. You know we aren't prefects."

"You threatened us with a prefect's lickin' just now," said Beetle,
boldly inventing as he saw the bewilderment in the faces of the
enemy. "And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of
approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night."

They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.

"But--but what the dickens have we done?" said Harrison, amazedly, to
Craye.

"I don't know. Only--it always happens that way when one has anything to
do with them. They're so beastly plausible."

And Mr. Prout called the good boys into his study anew, and succeeded
in sinking both his and their innocent minds ten fathoms deeper in
blindfolded bedazement. He spoke of steps and measures, of tone and
loyalty in the house and to the house, and urged them to take up the
matter tactfully.

So they demanded of Beetle whether he had any connection with any other
establishment. Beetle promptly went to his house-master, and wished
to know by what right Harrison and Craye had reopened a matter already
settled between him and his house-master. In injured innocence no boy
excelled Beetle.

Then it occurred to Prout that he might have been unfair to the culprit,
who had not striven to deny or palliate his offense. He sent for
Harrison and Craye, reprehending them very gently for the tone they had
adopted to a repentant sinner, and when they returned to their study,
they used the language of despair. They then made headlong inquisition
through the house, driving the fags to the edge of hysterics, and
unearthing, with tremendous pomp and parade, the natural and inevitable
system of small loans that prevails among small boys.

"You see, Harrison, Thornton minor lent me a penny last Saturday,
because I was fined for breaking the window; and I spent it at Keyte's.
I didn't know there was any harm in it. And Wray major borrowed twopence
from me when my uncle sent me a post-office order--I cashed it at
Keyte's--for five bob; but he'll pay me back before the holidays. We
didn't know there was anything wrong in it."

They waded through hours of this kind of thing, but found no usury,
or anything approaching to Beetle's gorgeous scale of interest. The
seniors--for the school had no tradition of deference to prefects
outside compulsory games--told them succinctly to go about their
business. They would not give evidence on any terms. Harrison w