ager to listen to the remark.

"It was this way. We had a guy belonging to the Ph.C.C, you know, and
he was chock-full of fireworks. We were keeping him for Guy Fawkes'
Day, you know. You wouldn't have known he was Jarman (Mr Jarman, I
mean), to look at him, but he was, and Sarah, being president, offered
to look after him. It was too big to stick under the bed, so--"

"So," continued I, "I thought the safest place to stick him would be in
the lumber room under the gym.; and I never thought any one would be
dropping matches through the grating on his touch-paper tongue. Tempest
didn't know anything about it, and--"

"You see," said Langrish, taking up the parable, "we meant to keep it
dark, and only the Philosophers were in it; he had on Sarah's hat and
boots, and a top-coat we found somewhere about. He'd have never gone
off of himself, and he wouldn't have done any harm on the Fifth, when we
should have hung and blown him up in the open. Tempest--"

"Tempest," broke in Dicky Brown, putting in his oar, "isn't the kind of
chap to do a thing like that on purpose; and it must have been Mr
Jarman blew him up by mistake, with one of his matches or the end of a
cigar or something--"

"It was a mulish thing of Sarah to stick him there," said Trimble, "but
he knows no better, and thought it was all right. So did we, and
Pridgin says it was quite an accident, sir, and--"

"And if any one's to get in a row," said I, "we'd better, because he was
our guy, and the mistake we made was letting his touch-paper tongue hang
out so far. He'd have never blown up if it hadn't been for that."

Here there was a general pause for breath, and the magistrate, who
evidently had a sense of humour, said,--

"And pray who is Sarah, my man?"

"That's what they call me when they're fooling; it's not my real name,
really, sir. Jones iv. is my real name."

"That's right," said Trimble; "he's only called Sarah because he looks
like it. He's not more in it than the rest of us, because he only had
to take care of the guy because he was president. We're all sorry the
tongue was made so long."

The magistrate did his best to look grave as he turned to Mr Jarman.

"Does this explanation help to clear up the mystery?"

Mr Jarman bit his lips and said,--

"If it is as they say, it may account for the explosion. I certainly
dropped several matches through the grating."

"It is as we say, isn't it, you chaps?" said Langrish. "We wou