I'm afraid there'll be a row about it."

"Any fool could tell that," said Tempest, with troubled face.

"I wish you hadn't been there," said I; "they may think it was you."

"Let them," said he, with a laugh which was anything but merry. I was
longing to hear what had happened to him last night, but he did not
volunteer any information, and I did not care to question him.

Horribly uneasy, I was about to seek the questionable consolations of my
comrades, when the school messenger entered with a long face.

"Master Tempest, the head master wants to see you at once."

"All right," said Tempest.

"He said I was to bring you."

"If you want to carry me, you may," said Tempest, with a short laugh;
"if not, wait a moment and I'll come. Jones, tell Pridgin I want to
speak to him--wait, I'll go to him."

The school messenger looked as if he felt it his duty to take the senior
at his word. Had Tempest been a smaller boy, he might have done so. As
it was, he repeated,--

"At once, please, sir."

Tempest took no notice, but went across the passage to his friend's
room.

When he reappeared in a minute or two, Pridgin was with him, and without
taking further notice of the messenger's presence the two walked arm-in-
arm out of the house and across the quadrangle.

The news of the summons spread like wildfire. The Philosophers, when in
due time they mustered in the faggery after their inspection of the
scene of the outrage, were not slow in taking in the seriousness of the
situation.

"Of course he's suspected. It's all your fault, you ass, for being such
a muff and letting Jarman catch you. You can't do a thing without
making a mess of it."

"How could I help it?" I pleaded.

"Couldn't you have fetched his blazer for him without running into that
cad's way?"

"What I can't make out," said Langrish, "is how Tempest knew about the
guy and was able to let it off."

"I don't believe he did," said I. "I'm sure he didn't."

"You'd believe anything. Things like that don't go off by themselves,
do they?"

I was bound to admit they did not, but persisted in my belief that
Tempest had nothing to do with it.

But the logic of the Philosophers was irresistible.

"Didn't we see him go over and come back? and didn't it blow up the
moment he got into the house?" said Trimble.

"And didn't he go over on purpose to have it out with Jarman?" said
Coxhead.

"And hadn't he got his blazer with him when he came b