scraped in for?" asked Dick sharply. "Hadn't
you better give in we've been a pack of fools at once?"

"So we have," said Coote. "I'd have liked awfully to get in the Club.
How stunning the picnics would be!"

"Young ass!" said Dick, "the grub's all you think about. Even if you
got on the list, it doesn't follow you'd be elected."

"It would be something, though, to get on the list," said Georgie. "It
makes a fellow feel so small to be out of it. Think of that howling
young Gosse being on!"

"Yes, and Raggles!" said Coote.

"Look here, I say," exclaimed Dick, suddenly stopping short in his walk,
his face lighting up with the brilliancy of the inspiration, "what asses
we are! There's the first Harrier hunt of the season to-morrow. Of
course, we'll go and run through!"

Heathcote whistled.

"They sometimes run a twelve-miler," said he.

"Never mind if they run twelve hundred," said Dick. "We're bound to be
in it, I tell you; it's our only chance."

"Birket told me hardly anyone ever runs in it below the Upper Fourth."

"Can't help that," said Dick, decisively; "there's nothing to prevent
us."

"Oh, of course not," said Heathcote, who inwardly reflected that there
was nothing to prevent their jumping over the moon if they only could.

"You're game, then?"

"All right," replied the two pliable ones.

"Hurrah! You know, we may not keep close up all the way, but if we can
only run it through it's all right. By Jove! I am glad I thought of
it, aren't you?"

"Awfully," they said.

Templeton opened its eyes that evening when it saw the "Firm" solemnly
go to bed at half-past seven.

It wasn't their usual practice to shorten their days in this manner, and
it was evident this early retirement meant something.

Speculation was set at rest next morning when, immediately after morning
school, they appeared in their knickerbockers and running shoes and bare
shins.

"Hullo!" said Cresswell, who was the first to encounter them in this
trim, "are you youngsters going to have a little run of your own?"

Cresswell was in running costume, too--a model whipper-in--determined to
do his part in the long afternoon's work which he had cut out for
himself and his Harriers.

"We're going to run in the big hunt," said Dick, modestly.

"What!" said the senior, laughing; "do you know what the run is?"

"About twelve-miles, isn't it?" said Coote, glad to air his knowledge.

"Yes. I'm afraid it will be hardly w