They came up the stairs, and put down and bolted the cellar door, and moved upon it with great difficulty the parallel bars with their iron supports, from the gymnasium, and several 25-pound dumb-bells, as well as the heavy vaulting-horse.  Reddy and Heady were in favor also of blocking up the narrow little windows set high in the walls of the cellar, well over the head of the tallest of the Crows; but Tug said that these windows were necessary for ventilation, and History was reminded of the Black Hole of Calcutta, so it was decided to leave the windows open for the sake of the air, even if it did give the Crows a loophole of possible escape.

“There’s no fun in an affair of this kind if the other side hasn’t even a chance,” said Tug; and this appealed to the Lakerim theory of sport.

X

So they all left the gymnasium with its prisoners, and Sawed-Off locked the door firmly behind him.  Then they went at a double-quick for Moore’s restaurant and the waiting banquet, which, they suspected, was by this time growing cold.

When MacManus left his room he had thrown on a long ulster overcoat with a very high collar.  When this was turned up about his ears it completely hid the gag around his mouth, and Tug and Sawed-Off locked arms with him and hurried him along the poorly lighted streets of Kingston without fear of detection from any passer-by.  MacManus dragged his feet and refused to go for a time, till Tug and Sawed-Off hauled him over such rough spots that he preferred to walk.  Then, without warning, when they were crossing a slippery place he pushed his feet in opposite directions and knocked Sawed-Off’s and Tug’s feet out from under them.  But inasmuch as all three of them fell in a heap, with him at the bottom, he decided that this was a poor policy.

The Dozen were soon at Moore’s restaurant; and there, at the door, they found waiting one of the Crows whom they had forgotten to take into account.  He was the fat boy whom Tug and History had seen hazed just before their turn came, on the eventful night at Roden’s Knoll.

Having been hazed, and having been taxed, this boy who was known as “Fatty” Warner, was entitled to banquet with the Crows; but he had been invited out to a bigger supper than he could get at the “Slaughter-house,” and so he did not receive his note, and escaped the fate of the Crows who had been put in cold storage in the gymnasium.

B.J. and Bobbles, however, took him to one side and told him that they were afraid they would have to tie him up and put him in a corner with MacManus.  But the tears came into his eyes at the thought of sitting and looking at a feast in which he could not take part, and he reminded the Lakerimmers that he had had no share in the attack on Tug and History, and had done nothing to interfere with their escape from Roden’s Knoll, and besides, he had been compelled to pay out his last cent of spending-money to the Crows for this banquet:  So the Lakerimmers decided to invite him to join them in eating the feast of the enemy.