never been ass enough to
confide the task to a couple of raw Goths like these. Whatever chance
there may have been before of discovering any mislaid article, it was
now hopelessly and irredeemably gone.

He dismissed the two youngsters with a kick, which they felt to be very
ungrateful after all the trouble they had taken. Limp in spirits and
grimy in personal appearance, they crawled away to the shop to console
themselves with ginger-beer and a cheese-cake.

"Hullo," said Lickford, as they arrived, "what have you been up to?
Sweeping the chimneys? I heard they wanted it on your side. What'll
you have? We've been doing prime. Where have you been?"

"We've been hunting about in my senior's study for some club money
that's lost; about four pou--"

"Shut up!" said Ashby, nudging his companion. "What do you want to blab
all over the place about it for?"

"How much?--four pounds?" said a voice near; and looking round, to their
horror they saw Dangle.

"All right," said Ashby, trying to save the situation, "it's bound to
turn up. He stuck it in a specially safe place, and can't remember
where. Look sharp with the ginger-beer, young Lickford."

"Money down first," said Lickford. "Catch me trusting any of you
Classic chaps with tick! You've got no tin generally, to begin with,
and then you go and lose it."

"That's better than stealing it," retorted Ashby.

"The thing is," said Dangle, breaking in on these pleasant
recriminations, "it wouldn't matter if it was Fisher's own money that
was lost. But it belongs to all of us."

"I tell you he's found it by now," said Ashby. Then, turning to Fisher
minor, he whispered, "you howling young ass, you've done it! Now
there'll be a regular row, and your brother will have you to thank for
it!"

"Don't blame him," said Dangle. "It's quite right of him to tell the
truth."

With which highly moral pronouncement the Modern senior strolled away.

Lickford was too much engrossed by a sudden influx of customers to
improve the occasion; and Fisher minor, who never enjoyed ginger-beer
less in his life, was allowed to depart in peace to meditate on the evil
of his ways, and the possible hot water he had been preparing for his
brother.

He had sense enough to reflect that he had better make a clean breast of
it to his brother at once.

To his surprise, the latter took the news that Dangle had heard of the
deficiency in the accounts more quietly than he had expected.