---"

"Yes," said Lovell, nodding his head reflectively. "He frothed at the
mouth, and then----"

"Grew quite black in the face," interpolated a third boy, who was
determined that Lovell should not carry off all the honours.

"I should say--purple," amended Lovell. "And then he gave----"

"A beastly gurgle----"

"A sort of snort, and fell flat on his face. I'm not sure that he
didn't strike the edge of the table as he fell."

"He did," said one of the boys. "I saw that."

At this moment Scaife moved in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face.
John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first
signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a
convulsive tremor of the limbs. Rutford bent down.

"Well, my dear Scaife, how are you? We've been a little anxious, all
of us, but, I ventured to predict, without cause. Tell us, my poor
boy, how do you feel?"

Scaife opened his eyes. Then he groaned dismally. Rutford was
standing to the right of the chair and footbath. The fifth were facing
Scaife. He met their anxious, admonishing glances, unable to interpret
them.

Lovell senior repeated the house-master's question--

"How are you, old chap?"

But, in his anxiety to convey a warning, he came too near, obscuring
Rutford's massive figure. Scaife groaned again, putting his hand to
his head.

"How am I?" he repeated thickly. "Why, why, I'm jolly well screwed,
Lovell; that's how I am! Jolly well screwed--hay? Ugh! how screwed I
am. Ugh!"

The groans fell on a terrifying silence. Rutford glanced keenly from
face to face. Then he said slowly--

"The wretched boy is--drunk!"

At the sound of his house-master's voice, Scaife relapsed into an
insensibility which no one at the moment cared to pronounce counterfeit
or genuine. Rutford glared at Lovell.

"Who was in your room, Lovell?"

Without waiting for Lovell to answer, the other boys, each in turn,
said, "I, sir," or "Me, sir." John came last.

"Anybody else, Lovell?"

A discreet master would not have asked this question, but Dirty Dick
was the last man to waive an advantage. Now, the Caterpillar had
quietly left No. 15, as soon as Rutford entered it. Not from any
cowardly motive, but--as he put it afterwards--"because one makes a
point of retiring whenever a rank outsider appears. One ought to be
particular about the company one keeps." It says something for the
boy's character, that this statement was a