Here the door opened, and, escorted by half a dozen of the juniors, Mr
Rollitt, looking more bewildered than ever, walked in.

He looked apologetically from one side to the other, saying, "Thank'ee
kindly," and "No offence, young gents," until he found himself at the
end of the Hall among the prefects.

Then Yorke got up again, still hot with temper, and a dead silence
ensued. Dangle smiled at first. But his face gradually blanched as he
looked round and found his retreat cut off, and guessed what was coming.

"Mr Rollitt," said Yorke, "we are your son's schoolfellows. A great
wrong has been done him. He has been suspected of being a thief, and
has run away. We all now know that he's not a thief; and we are ashamed
that he has ever been suspected. We hope he will come back, so that we
may tell him so. But there is one fellow here who still says your son
is a thief, although he knows as well as we do he isn't. What shall we
do to him?"

Mr Rollitt looked up and down, casting a glance first at his young
protectors at the end of the Hall, then scanning the benches before him,
then running his eye along the row of prefects, and finally taking the
measure of Yorke as he stood and waited for an answer.

Then suddenly the question seemed to come home.

"My son Alf a thief? There's one of 'em says that, is there? My son
Alf a thief? Do to him! Why, I'll tell you. Just keep him till my son
Alf comes back, and make him go and say it to his face. That's what _I_
should do to him, young gents."

"That's what we will do," said Yorke. "The meeting is over."

And amid the excitement that ensued, the rush to put down names for the
new club, the cheers and hootings and hand-shakings of old enemies, Mr
Rollitt was carried off in triumph by his nine hosts to high tea in
Wally Wheatfield's room.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WATCH-TOWER.

Wally's study--he always liked to call it a "study," but his friends
preferred to call it a den--could comfortably accommodate six. The
juniors had frequently to own that nine, the normal size of the party,
was a jam. When, in addition to that, a big, brawny man was thrown in,
it came to be a serious question as to how the four walls would sustain
the strain.

Wally, however, was determined to manage somehow. He indignantly
rejected Percy's offer to his more spacious apartment over the way. No.
He had captured the lion--he and D'Arcy--and they would entertain him
in th