aundering away some cursed sentimental
ditty or other behind), lurched more heavily than usual, and
pitched off into the night somewhere. Blake looked for him for
half-an-hour, and couldn't find a hair."

"You don't mean to say the man tumbled off and you never found
him?" said Tom in horror.

"Well, that's about the fact," said Drysdale; "but it isn't so
bad as you think. We had no lamps, and it was an uncommon bad
night for running by holloas."

"But a first-rate night for running by scent," broke in Blake;
"the fellow leant against me until he made his exit, and I'd have
backed myself to have hit the scent again half-a-mile off if the
wind had only been right."

"He may have broken his neck," said Tom.

"Can a fellow sing with a broken neck?" said Drysdale; "hanged if
I know! But don't I tell you, we heard him maundering on
somewhere or other? And when Blake shouted, he rebuked him
piously out of the pitch darkness, and told him to go home and
repent. I nearly dropped off the box laughing at them; and then
he 'uplifted his testimony,' as he called it, against me, for
driving a horse called Satan. I believe he's a ranting methodist
spouter."

"I tried hard to find him," said Blake; "For I should dearly have
liked to kick him safely into the ditch."

"At last Black Will himself couldn't have held Satan another
minute. So Blake scrambled up, and away we came, and knocked into
college at one for a finish: the rest you know."

"Well, you've had a pretty good day of it," said Tom, who had
been hugely amused; "but I should feel nervous about the help, if
I were you."

"Oh, he'll come to no grief, I'll be bound," said Drysdale, "but
what o'clock is it?"

"Three," said Blake, looking at his watch and getting up; "time
to turn in."

"The first time I ever heard you say that," said Drysdale.

"Yes; but you forget we were up this morning before the world was
aired. Good night, Brown."

And off the two went, leaving Tom to sport his oak this time, and
retire in wonder to bed.

Drysdale was asleep, with Jack curled up on the foot of the bed,
in ten minutes. Blake, by the help of wet towels and a knotted
piece of whipcord round his forehead, read Pinder till the chapel
bell began to ring.

CHAPTER VII

AN EXPLOSION

Our hero soon began to feel that he was contracting his first
college friendship. The great, strong, badly-dressed,
badly-appointed servitor, who seemed almost at the same time
utterly re