t to thirty pounds.

Percy still could not accept the story.

Whereat Rix, anxious to meet his friend as far as possible, substituted
a walking-stick for the pistol.

Still Percy's gullet could not swallow even what was left.

Whereupon Rix suggested that it was open to doubt whether it was the
doctor who was robbed or Fisher major. It _might_ have been the latter.

Still Percy looked sceptical.

Which called forth an explanation that Rix did not mean to say that
Dangle actually witnessed the occurrence; but that he knew it for a fact
all the same.

Percy shook his head still.

And Rix, feeling much injured, laid the scene of the outrage in Fisher's
study, and conceded that the money might belong to the clubs, and might
be only five pounds.

Percy had the temerity once more to express doubt. Whereupon Rix flatly
declined to come down another penny in the amount, or alter his story
one iota, with one possible exception; that the money may have been
taken when Fisher major was not in his room.

Percy considered the anecdote had been boiled down sufficiently for
human consumption, and grieved Rix prodigiously by saying that he knew
all about it weeks ago, and what did he mean by coming and telling him
his wretched second-hand stories?

However, whatever variations the rumour underwent as it passed from hand
to hand, it managed to retain its three most salient points all
through--namely, that Fisher major had been robbed; that the money taken
belonged to the club; and that the suspected thief was Rollitt.

For a week or two Rollitt remained profoundly ignorant of the charges
against him. His unapproachable attitude was the despair both of friend
and enemy. Yorke, who would have given anything to let him have an
opportunity of denying or explaining the charge, was at his wits' end
how to get at him. Dangle, on the contrary, who was chiefly interested
in the penalties in store for the thief, was equally at a loss how to
bring him to bay.

He would see no one. He shut himself in his study and fastened the
door. In class and Hall he was practically deaf and dumb; and in his
solitary walks by the river it was as much as any one's comfort for the
whole term was worth to accost him.

By one of those strange coincidences which often bring the most unlikely
persons into sympathy, Yorke and Dangle each decided to write what they
hesitated to say.

Yorke had endless difficulty over his letter. He could not b