shouted,--

"Please, sir, it's my fault!"

Everybody turned to me in amazement, as well they might.

"Your fault, Jones iv.?--come forward and explain."

"I mean," said or rather shouted I, speaking while I walked up the room,
"it's my fault you got that bill, sir. I don't know how you got it, but
it wasn't meant to get to you, really. I must have dropped it. I--I--
was going--to try--to get it paid for him, sir. Really--"

Tempest gave me a glare that knocked all the spirit out of me. What
business had I, it seemed to demand, to meddle in his private affairs?

I felt I had done him a real bad turn by my clumsiness, but had not the
wit to avoid making bad worse.

"Yes, sir, I told Marple--"

"I purposely refrained from mentioning names, Jones iv.; why can you not
do so too?"

"I told him to keep it dark, and got him to give it to me. I--I knew
Tempest hadn't enough money to pay it--and--and--"

An exclamation of anger from Tempest cut me short, and I was sent
ignominiously back to my place.

"Tempest," said the head master very sternly, "send me in a list of all
you owe before you go to bed to-night, and understand that, unless all
is paid by Friday when we break up, you will not be allowed to return to
Low Heath after the holidays. You must cease in any case to retain the
headship of the house, even for the few days of the term that remain.
You, I understand. Crofter, come next in form order; you will act as
head boy in the meantime."

In the midst of my anguish I could see the look of meek resignation on
Crofter's face, and that of quiet satisfaction on Mr Jarman's. At
Tempest I dared not look, or at my fellow-Philosophers.

What had I done? What was to become of me? How could I get out of it?
These were the three questions which set my poor brain spinning as I
wandered off alone to the remotest corner of the quadrangle, and as,
later on, I lay miserably awake in my bed.

I had done my friend about as much harm as I possibly could. I may not
have meant it. But who cares what a fellow means, so long as he acts
like a cad? As to what was to become of me, I had had a taste of that
already. The faggery door had been locked against me, and a missive
shoved under the bottom had apprised me of my fate in that quarter.

"To Beast Sarah.

"Take notice that you are kicked out of the Philosophers, and if you
dare show your abominable face within a mile of them you'll get it all
over with ruler