to go quite mad. He
has a violent temper, sir----"

"Yes, yes."

"A very violent temper. He--he----"

"Frothed at the mouth," put in a bystander. "I particularly noticed
that."

"Really, really----"

"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 foot-bath. 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