t the school that I've
been made a Beetle under the Garside flag, what will the fellows think
of it? I shall never hear the last of it. I shall be roasted all round."

"And serve you right, too!" cried Harry, losing his temper. "A jolly
good roasting will do you good. It'll take some of the bounce out of
you. If it hadn't been for you, we shouldn't have got into this mess."

"What do you mean?" demanded Plunger hotly.

"It was all through playing the spy on Percival. If it hadn't been for
following him, those Beetles wouldn't have got hold of us."

"Come, that's good. Your cheek's superb. That's the only thing you seem
to have brought with you from Gaffer Quelch's. Who was it suggested we
should follow Percival? Was it me, I should like to know, or one of the
little prigs from Gaffer Quelch's?"

Harry could not immediately respond. He had forgotten for the moment
that the suggestion to follow Percival had come from him. But after a
moment's reflection he answered lamely:

"Yes; but it was you who caught sight of Percival as he was on the road
to St. Bede's and put the suggestion in my head."

"Well, of all the bosh----Oh, shut up, or put on a strait-waistcoat.
You're getting dangerous," said Plunger crushingly, seeing that he had
"scored."

Harry, indignant with himself, Plunger, and all the world, went on
ahead. But after a bit Plunger caught up to him.

"You needn't get into a wax because I set you right just now. I flatter
myself there aren't many chaps can score over me when I choose to set
about them. It's not your fault that you've got too much of Gaffer
Quelch's seminary for boys and girls about you. I had it for the first
term at Garside, but I soon grew out of it. And you'll grow out of it,
too. Fact is, Harry, neither of us is to blame for falling into the
hands of the Philistines--Beetles, I mean. Let's put the blame on the
right shoulders."

"And the right shoulders are----"

"Percival. It was through following him we fell into that beastly trap,
and it seems to me--though I don't like to say it--that Percival has a
good deal to answer for. What was he doing at St. Bede's? What was he
doing with that fellow, Wyndham, who knocked about your cousin so
unmercifully at the sand-pits? Did you notice what good terms they were
on--Wyndham with his arm tucked through Percival's."

Harry had seen it all, and as Plunger was speaking he recalled that
other scene he had striven so hard to forget--when he h