th one hand and grasping
their pillows with the other.

"Look out, they're coming!" whispered Jack Vance; "wasn't that something
hit the door?"

"It sounded as if something fell on the floor," answered Diggory.
"I wonder if anything's rolled off either of the washstands."

Jack Vance reconnoitred the passage, while Diggory and Mugford examined
the room; but nothing could be found to account for the disturbance.

"It must have been the fellows in the 'Main-top.' I expect they dropped
a book or upset a chair. Don't let's bother about it any more."

The following morning, however, the mystery was explained. The boys
were hastily putting on their clothes, when Mugford, who had just thrown
aside a dirty collar, gave vent to an exclamation of dismay, which
attracted the attention of his two companions.

"Hullo! what's up?"

"Why, look here! If this beastly bottle of ginger-beer hasn't gone and
burst in the middle of my box!"

The first meeting of the supper club was a great success. How ever
Acton and his noble friends had managed to smuggle upstairs, under their
jackets, a pork-pie, a plum-cake, a bag of tarts, and a pound of
biscuits, was a feat which, as Jack Vance remarked, "beat conjuring."

Shortly after midnight the Triple Alliance wended their way to the
"House of Lords," where they found the three other members quite ready
to commence operations. The good things were spread out on the top of a
chest of drawers, and the company ranged themselves round on the
available chairs and two adjacent beds, and commenced to enjoy the
repast.

"Ah, well," sighed Acton, with his mouth full of pork-pie, "I'm rather
glad for some things that I didn't get engaged. It must be rather a
bore having to spend all your money in rings and that sort of thing,
instead of in grub; though I really think I'd have given up grub for
Miss Eleanor."

"I wonder," said Morris, who was of a more prosaic disposition, "how it
is that it's always much jollier having a feed when you ought not to
than at the proper time. For instance, eating this pork-pie at a table,
with knife and fork and a plate, wouldn't be a quarter the fun it is
having it like we're doing now--cutting it with a razor out of Acton's
dressing-case, and knowing that if we were cobbed we should get into a
jolly row."

"Talking about rows over feeds," said Acton, "my brother John is at
Ronleigh College, and I remember, soon after he went there, he said they
had a g