ave said. Getting his cousin to
bring his mean, petty message. Didn't dream that anything so serious had
happened, indeed! Pah!"

Alas! alas! The breach between the two former friends, instead of
closing, was widening.

All the boys who had taken part in the raft incident were severely
lectured by Mr. Weevil, and were debarred from the usual half-holidays
during the next fortnight, as well as receiving a heavy number of lines
to keep them busily occupied during the same period. Then the master
went on to say:

"Percival has done a brave act. He went to the assistance of Hibbert in
a moment of extreme peril. He placed his life in jeopardy to save him.
God grant that his act of bravery may not have been in vain!"

Mr. Weevil paused for an instant, with closed eyes, as though he were
praying; then, when he opened them again, it seemed as though the
incident and all connected with it had passed from his mind, as, in a
few cold words, he turned to the duties of the day.

Paul was more than gratified with this brief allusion to what he had
done, but he could not help noticing that no reference was made by Mr.
Weevil to the part he had played in the rescue of Baldry and Plunger.
His whole thought seemed centred on Hibbert.

"Strange, his liking for the little chap," thought Paul.

It was as though the master were trying to make up to the frail,
deformed boy for the neglect of others. And whenever Paul now thought of
him, it was not as he remembered him on that night when he had peeped
through the dormitory window, and had seen him talking to Israel Zuker,
but as he had seen him kneeling by Hibbert's bed and babbling to him
tenderly in an unknown tongue.

The next number of the _Gargoyle Record_ made various indirect
references to the "Crusoe incident" in the editor's usual vein.

"Missing Link has turned up in the neighbourhood of the river--latest
mania--punting and desert islands.... Our poet is much obliged for the
response given to his appeal in our last issue. He was stuck, it will be
remembered, for a rhyme to 'hunger,' and the rhyme was to be a name of
some kind--bird, beast, or fish. Curious to say, all our correspondents
have hit upon the same rhyme and name.

"Honour of the Fifth looking up a bit. Tarnished near sand-pit on
Cranstead Common, it has just had a washing in the river. Better for its
bath, though not yet up to its former lustre.

"The Fresher of the Third who was prepared to give hints on the