in the Sixth but gives me the cold shoulder.
Allingford sets the example, and there's hardly one of them will give me
a civil word. They'd like to oust me from the prefects like they did
you, but they shan't, and, what's more, I'll get even chalks with some
of them before I leave."

"Hear, hear!" exclaimed Thurston; "that's just what I say. And now the
question is, what shall we do?"

"Nothing at present," answered the other. "We must wait until this
affair's blown over. There's no need to run the risk of getting
expelled; and, besides, we want some time to think of a plan."

The faint _clang, ter-ang_ of a bell sounded across the playing field.
Noaks and Hawley rose to their feet.

"'Prep!'" exclaimed the latter. "We must be off." A new cause for
anxiety now presented itself to Diggory's mind in the thought that he
would be late in taking his place in the big schoolroom. He knew
that Noaks and Hawley would have to be in time for the assembly; but the
two Sixth Form boys were not amenable to the same rule, and might linger
behind.

Thurston, however, rose to his feet, blew out the candle, and the four
conspirators groped their way in a body out through the low doorway.

Diggory waited until he thought they must have reached the school
buildings, and then prepared to follow. The bell had stopped ringing
some minutes, and without looking very carefully where he was going, he
ran as fast as he could out of the match-ground, and across the junior
field. Suddenly, right in front of him, and within fifty yards of the
paved playground, a dark figure seemed all at once to rise out of the
ground. It was Noaks! The latter had dropped a pencil-case, and had
been left by his companions searching for it on his hands and knees.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, catching the small boy by the arm. "Who are you?
and where have you been?"

"What's that to you?" answered Diggory boldly; "let me go."

The remembrance of that mysterious smell of a fusee flashed across
Noaks's mind.

"Look here!" he cried sharply. "You tell me this moment where you've
been."

"In the other field."

"What were you doing there?"

"Running."

There was a moment's silence. Noaks had a strong suspicion that the
other knew something about the secret meeting; it was equally possible,
however, that he did not. Young madcaps were often known to let off
steam by careering wildly round the field after dark, and if this had
really been the case i