style."

Tempest smiled provokingly.

"I'd sooner walk, sir," said he. "If the policeman holds me on one side
and Mr Jarman on the other--"

"Silence, sir," said the doctor sternly, while Mr Jarman raised his
brows deprecatingly.

"Am I to come too?" said I.

"Yes."

"I should like Pridgin and some of the fellows to be there too, sir,"
said Tempest. "They saw me just before and just after the explosion."

"It does not seem necessary to have more boys," said Mr Jarman.

"Not to you!" said Tempest hotly; "the fewer _you_ have the better. But
if you choose to accuse me, I sha'n't ask you whom to have to speak for
me."

"Tempest," said the head master, "you are only doing yourself harm by
this. Jones, go and fetch Pridgin, and any of the others he speaks of,
to the police court; and kindly do not say a word of what has passed
here. How, constable, are you ready?"

The school was fortunately all within doors at the time, so that, except
to the few who chanced to be gazing from the windows, the little
procession, headed by the doctor and Mr Jarman, with the policeman and
Tempest bringing up the rear, passed unobserved.

I was full of apprehensions. Whatever the result, I knew Tempest well
enough to be sure that the effect on him would be bad, and would call
out in him all that spirit of insubordination and defiance which had
before now threatened to wreck his career. A strong sense of
responsibility was all that had hitherto held it in check. If that were
now shattered--and how could it help being upset by this charge?--it
would break out badly and dangerously. I was not long in speeding over
to Sharpe's, where I found Pridgin just going over to class.

He heard the doctor's message with a groan of weariness.

"What's the use of my going?--_I_ can't tell them anything," said he.

"You can tell them Tempest never did it," said I.

"If they don't believe him, they won't me. Anyhow, I am coming."
Thereupon I was inspired to tell him the secret history of the effigy of
Mr Jarman, and my theory as to the cause of the explosion; namely, that
Tempest might have dropped a match through the grating, not knowing on
what it would fall, and that in the natural perversity of things it had
lit on the projecting tongue of the guy.

"You'd better make a clean breast of that guy," said Pridgin, "if you
want to get Tempest out of this mess. You'll probably get expelled or
flogged, but Low Heath can spare you bett