all write to-morrow to the manager
asking him to receive you at once----"

"After all, they only gain an extra fortnight of me."

"You will leave directly I receive his letter. I shall arrange with
the headmaster that you are withdrawn privately----"

"_Not_ the sack?"

"Withdrawn privately. You will not go to school to-morrow. Do you
understand? That is all. Have you anything to say?"

Wyatt reflected.

"No, I don't think----"

His eye fell on a tray bearing a decanter and a syphon.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Can't I mix you a whisky and soda, father, before
I go off to bed?"

* * * * *

"Well?" said Mike.

Wyatt kicked off his slippers, and began to undress.

"What happened?"

"We chatted."

"Has he let you off?"

"Like a gun. I shoot off almost immediately. To-morrow I take a
well-earned rest away from school, and the day after I become the
gay young bank-clerk, all amongst the ink and ledgers."

Mike was miserably silent.

"Buck up," said Wyatt cheerfully. "It would have happened anyhow in
another fortnight. So why worry?"

Mike was still silent. The reflection was doubtless philosophic, but
it failed to comfort him.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE AFTERMATH

Bad news spreads quickly. By the quarter to eleven interval next day
the facts concerning Wyatt and Mr. Wain were public property. Mike, as
an actual spectator of the drama, was in great request as an
informant. As he told the story to a group of sympathisers outside the
school shop, Burgess came up, his eyes rolling in a fine frenzy.

"Anybody seen young--oh, here you are. What's all this about Jimmy
Wyatt? They're saying he's been sacked, or some rot."

[Illustration: "WHAT'S ALL THIS ABOUT JIMMY WYATT?"]

"So he has--at least, he's got to leave."

"What? When?"

"He's left already. He isn't coming to school again."

Burgess's first thought, as befitted a good cricket captain, was for
his team.

"And the Ripton match on Saturday!"

Nobody seemed to have anything except silent sympathy at his command.

"Dash the man! Silly ass! What did he want to do it for! Poor old
Jimmy, though!" he added after a pause. "What rot for him!"

"Beastly," agreed Mike.

"All the same," continued Burgess, with a return to the austere manner
of the captain of cricket, "he might have chucked playing the goat
till after the Ripton match. Look here, young Jackson, you'll turn out
for fielding with the first this aftern