L12 2 shillings on another day--that makes the total. There you
are. Why on earth did I put them away in separate lots? Then I paid L5
for the new goals, and something else--what was it? Oh, that was for
the House balls--oh, but we are lumping the two together. What was it?
I know, 17 shillings 6 pence--that's L5 17 shillings 6 pence; and
something else, I know, came to a pound--L6 17 shillings 6 pence. Take
that from L34 12 shillings, leaves L27 14 shillings 6 pence--and I've
only got L22 18 shillings 6 pence! Where, in the name of wonder, has
the rest gone?"

And once more the dismal operation of adding up, counting, and
subtracting began anew, with the same, or almost the same, result--there
was a mistake of something like L4 10 shillings, whichever way you
looked at it.

Dalton, who came in presently, could throw no further light on the
problem. He added up the columns, counted the money, subtracted the
payments and arrived at the same result.

Had the difference been smaller, it might have been accounted for by a
few subscriptions omitted or a few payments not entered. But L4 10
shillings was too big a sum to leak away by accident; and, with the
exception of the new goals, Fisher major was confident nothing had been
spent approaching the figure.

Dalton then proposed a fresh hunt through the study, in case the missing
sum might be hidden for safety in some corner. So the room was turned
upside down; the bed-clothes were shaken out, pockets searched, books
turned over, tea-pots peered into; but all to no purpose.

The captain looked in while the search was proceeding.

"Have you got the-- Hullo, what's up?"

"Why," said Fisher major, "there's a discrepancy. We ought to have L27
14 shillings 6 pence, and there's about L4 10 shillings short."

"Do you mean that's missing in the Club accounts?"

"Well, either in that or the House clubs, or in both lumped together. I
say, I wish you'd add that up, there's a good fellow. The addition may
be wrong."

But no; the captain made it the same as Dalton.

Ranger and Ridgway dropped in while the audit was in progress, and were
promptly pounced upon to add the columns too. Evidently the mistake was
not there. They made the total precisely the same.

"It must be in the payments, then," said Fisher. So the whole party sat
down, and scrutinised the hapless treasurer's bills and vouchers, and,
after allowing him the benefit of every imaginable doubt, stil