ms, when our friend went to report himself afterwards.

"My watch stopped, sir. I thought I had plenty of time, and then heard
the bell begin when I was just coming off Sidebury Down. Even then I
tried to do it, but it was impossible."

"Well, I can't help that. You'll have to do four hundred lines,"
answered Mr Williams, fully intending to let him off half of them.
"One of my prefects, too," he added, half quizzically, half with a mock
aggrieved air.

"Very sorry, sir."

The imposition was really less than he had expected. If only the matter
were to rest there, he thought.

"I say, Haviland," subsequently remarked Laughton in hall. "You're a
cool customer, marching in behind Nick in that stately manner. Did you
think he wouldn't see you?"

"Yes. It was the only chance, and I took it. He wouldn't have, either,
if all those asses hadn't given, the show away by gaping like so many
idiots, confound them."

"What's Williams given you?"

"Four hundred. I believe I'll try and get him to let me off one. He
hasn't gated me either. He's a good sort, is Williams. What do you
think, Laughton? Think Nick'll take the thing any further? The old
brute looked vicious, and he perfectly hates me. I don't know why."

Laughton wouldn't commit himself to an opinion, and the general feeling
at the prefects' table was about evenly divided as to whether the Doctor
would take it up or not.

"If you could only have seen yourself, Haviland!" cut in Cluer, another
prefect. "It was enough to kill a cat, I swear it was. It looked for
all the world as if you and Nick were trying which could crowd on the
most side." And he spluttered over the recollection.

"Jolly good fun for you, Cluer, no doubt," said Medlicott, "and for all
of us, but it's beastly rough on Haviland, remember."

"Rather, if Nick's in one of his rotten moods," said Laughton. "But
let's hope he won't be."

Alas for any such hopes! On the way out of hall the fatal summons came:
"Haviland to go to the Doctor's study after prep, bell."

"All up!" groaned the implicated one.

When, at the appointed time, Haviland entered the dread presence, there
was no doubt but that the headmaster was "in one of his rotten moods,"
as Laughton had so graphically put it. Seated there at his study table,
his face wore a very thundercloud of sternness, as he curtly invited the
other to make his explanation. This was exactly the same as that
offered to Mr Williams, b