f threats the bat was not brought back nor its purloiner
or annexer betrayed. The bat was gone, and its owner's practice was
modified, for he did not care to improve the driving power of his
first-class bats by having them bored and weighted with lead.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

WRENCH IS CONFIDENTIAL.

The Doctor was very fond of lecturing the boys on the beneficial
qualities of water.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I pass no stern edicts or objections to the use
of beer, and for those who like to drink it there is the ale of my
table, which is of a nature that will do harm to no one"--which was
perfectly true--"but I maintain that water--good, pure, clear, bright,
sparkling spring water--is the natural drink of man. And being the
natural drink of man, ergo--or, as our great national poet Shakespeare
puts the word in the mouth of one of his clowns, _argal_--it is the
natural drink of boys."

As he spoke, the Doctor poured out from a ground-glass decanter-like
bottle a tumblerful of clear cold water, which he treated as if it were
beer, making it bubble and foam for a moment before it subsided in the
glass.

The Doctor said good, pure, sparkling water, and the supply of the
school possessed these qualities, for it came from a deep draw-well that
went right down, cased in brick, for about forty feet, while for sixty
feet more it was cut through the solid stone.

The Doctor was very particular about this well, which was furnished with
a mechanical arrangement of winch and barrel, which sent down one big,
heavy bucket as the winder worked and brought up another full; and it
was Wrench's special task to draw the drinking-water from this well for
the whole of the school, that used for domestic purposes coming from two
different sources--one an ordinary well, and the other a gigantic
soft-water tank.

One morning early, after Singh and Glyn descended from their dormitory,
and were strolling down towards the Doctor's neatly-kept garden by a way
which led them past the well-house, they stopped to listen to a clear
musical pipe that was accompanied by the creaking of a wheel and the
splash of water.

The pipe proved to be only Wrench the footman's whistle, and its effect
was that of a well-played piccolo flute, as it kept on giving the boys
the benefit of a popular air with variations, which stopped suddenly as
the big full bucket reached the surface and was drawn sideways on to a
ledge by the man, while a hollow musical dri