this score, as if they had taken weight out of the roller,
or could put extra weight into it; and I have sometimes thought that if
the critics would have sat on the roller instead of on us, it would have
been more effective." Laughter; for a little joke goes a long way on
these solemn occasions. "Mr Rabbits has kindly audited our accounts,
which are satisfactory, I believe; here they are, if any one likes to
look at them. We do not owe anything, and there are two pounds in hand
for the football, and seven pounds twelve shillings for the cricket
accounts, which I have here. Hulloa! what is this?" and Crawley changed
countenance as he opened a _portmonnaie_ which he took out of the box,
and drew from it a five-pound note. "I have been robbed!" he cried.
"There were four half-sovereigns, two sovereigns, and twelve shillings
in silver, besides this bank-note in the purse this morning, and now
there is only the five-pound note here!"

The consternation caused by this announcement was so great that for
quite a quarter of a minute there was a dead silence, and then
ejaculations, suggestions, questions, began to pour.

"Perhaps it is loose in the box," said some one, and the papers were
immediately all taken out, and the box turned upside down to prove the
futility of that perhaps.

"Well, never mind; of course I am responsible," said Crawley presently,
recovering himself. "I was taken by surprise, or I should not have made
all this fuss. The money will not be wanted till the cricketing season
begins next term, and I can make it good by then."

Outsiders then took their departure, leaving the committee to any
deliberations that might remain, and carrying the news of the robbery
far and wide, so that it became the principal topic of conversation
throughout the school that evening. Of course it lost nothing in the
telling, and some received the information that Crawley's room had been
regularly cleared out that day, all his books, clothes, and pictures
taken, besides five pounds of his own and twenty of the public money.

The committee had not much business to transact. The day for the match
at football between Dr Jolliffe's and Mr Cookson's houses was settled,
a suggestion that some new turf should be laid down on a part of the
cricket-field where the grass had been worn past recovery was agreed to,
and the members who did not board at Dr Jolliffe's were back at their
own houses before "All In."

But the exciteme