was in a great way about it, I gathered, although no harm had been done, and it was only one of the pupils who had loosed off in his excitement. But would I care to come along and inspect the damage then and there? If so, they would be glad to see me, and as yet there was whisky for all comers.

I turned out instantly in my dressing-gown and slippers, found Uvo shivering in his, and raced him to the scene. It took some finding in the fog, until the lighted hall flashed upon us like a dark lantern at arm's length. In the class room at the back of the house, round the gas fire which obtained in all our houses, pedagogue and pupils were still telling their tale by turns and in chaotic chorus. Their audience was smaller than I expected. A little knot of unsporting tenants seemed more disposed to complain of the disturbance than to take up the chase; but indeed that was hopeless in the fog and darkness, and before long Uvo and I were the only interlopers left. We remained by special invitation, for I had made friends with the colonel over the papering and painting of his house, while Uvo had just shown himself a would-be friend indeed.

"It's a very easy battle to reconstruct," said the crammer at the foot of his stairs. "I was up there on the landing when I took my first shot at the scoundrels. You'll find it in the lower part of the front door. One of them blazed back, and there's the hole in the landing window. I had last word from the mat, and I've been looking for it in the gate, but I begin to hope we may find a drop or two of their blood instead to-morrow morning."

Colonel Cheffins was a little bald man with a tooth-brush moustache, and bright eyes that danced with frank delight in the whole adventure. He looked every inch the old soldier, even in a Jaeger suit of bedroom overalls, and I vastly preferred him to his two young men; but scholastic connections are not formed by picking and choosing your original material. Delavoye and I, however, made as free as they with the whisky bottle as a substitute for adequate clothing, and the one who had nearly committed manslaughter had some excuse in his depression and remorse.

"If I'd hit you," he said to Uvo, "I'd have blown my own silly brains out with the next chamber. I'm not kidding. I wouldn't shoot a man for twenty thousand pounds!"

And he shuddered into the chair nearest the glowing lumps of white asbestos licked by thin blue flames.

"God bless my soul, no more would I!" cried the crammer heartily. "I aimed low on 

 Prev. P 79/136 next