best fireworks we could get for the money, carrying our
explosives back to the school carefully concealed on our persons, and
secreting them in our lockers.

"We'll have such a lark!" said Tom.

"Won't it be jolly!" I chimed in, with equal enthusiasm--adding,
however, a moment afterwards, as the reflection occurred to me, "What a
pity, though, Tom, that the Fifth falls this year on a Sunday? I
declare, I never thought of it before!"

"Nor I," said he, and both our faces fell six inches at least.

But, Tom's soon brightened up again, as some happy thought flashed
across his mind.

"Why, it'll be all the better, Martin," he cried out, greatly to my
surprise.

"How can that be?" I exclaimed, indignantly. "The Doctor will never
allow us to have our bonfire, I'm sure!"

"Hush, you stupid," said Tom. "I do declare your brains must be wool-
gathering! Stop a minute and listen to me."

He then whispered to me a plan he had thought of for signalising "the
glorious Fifth," in spite of Dr Hellyer, and in a manner which that
worthy would never dream of. It was a scheme quite worthy of Tom's
fertile imagination.

"Oh, won't it be a lark!" I cried, when he had finished; and we both
then burst into an ecstasy of laughter at the very idea of the thing.

CHAPTER SIX.

OUR PLOT AND ITS RESULTS.

"Now, mind," said Tom, after a pause in our giggling, "we won't tell any
one else about it!"

"No," I agreed; "it will be all the more fun to keep it to ourselves,
and, besides, there will be less chance of our being found out."

True to our compact, not a word of our conspiracy was breathed to a soul
in the school; and the eventful day approached at last, if not "big with
the fate of Caesar and of Rome," pregnant with a plan for astonishing
our master, and celebrating the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in a
manner never known before in the traditions of the establishment--
although, perhaps, perfectly in keeping with the idea of the original
iconoclast, whose memory we intended to do honour to in fitting manner.

When Dr Hellyer awoke to the knowledge of the fact that the Fifth of
November fell this year on a Sunday, had he generously made allowance
for the patriotic feelings of his pupils, and allowed them to have their
usual annual firework demonstration on the Saturday prior, which
happened to be a half-holiday, the matter might have been harmoniously
arranged, and Tom and I been persuaded at the last moment