Jack went away, and as the door closed softly behind him Acton smiled sweetly.

“Well, Raffles has managed it nicely, and carried out my orders to the strokings of the t’s.  He is quite a genius in a low kind of way.  And now I’m ready for Philip Bourne, Esq.  I bet I’m a sight more comfortable than he is.”  Which was very true.

I, of course, knew nothing of all these occurrences at the time, and the first intimation I had that anything was wrong was when Phil Bourne came into my room and gave me a plain unvarnished account, sans comment, of Acton’s and young Bourne’s foolery in London.

“I’m awfully glad, old man, that I am able to tell you this, because, although you’re Captain of the school, you can’t do anything, since Acton is a monitor.”

(It is an unwritten law at St. Amory’s that one monitor can never, under any circumstances, “peach” upon another.)

“Well, I’m jolly glad too, Bourne, since your brother’s in it.”

“What has to be done to Acton?  Jack, of course, was only a tool in his hands.”

“Oh, of course.  It is perfectly certain that our friend engineered the whole business up to and including the letter, which was meant for you.”

“Do you really think that?” said Phil.

“I’m as certain of it as I can be of anything that I don’t actually know to be true.”

“Why did he do it?”

“Do you feel anything about this, old man?”

“I feel in the bluest funk that I can remember.”

“Then, that’s why.”

“You see, I cannot put my ringer on the brute.”

“He has you in a cleft stick.  Who knows that better than Acton?”

“I’m going to thrash Jack, the little idiot.  I distinctly told him to give Acton a wide berth.”

“Jack, of course, is an idiot; but Acton is the fellow that wants the thrashing.”

Phil pondered over this for fully five minutes.

“You’re right, old man, and I’ll give—­I’ll try to give—­him the thrashing he deserves.”

“Big biz,” said I.  “You say you aren’t as good as Hodgson; Hodgson isn’t in the same street as Acton; ergo, you aren’t in the same parish.”

“That’s your beastly logic, Carr.  Does a good cause count for nothing?”

“Not for much, when you’re dealing with sharps.”

“I see you’ve inherited your pater’s law books.  The school goes home to-morrow, doesn’t it?  Well, my Lord Chief Justice, in what relation do you stand towards the school to-morrow?  Are you Captain?”

“No,” said I, in my best legal manner.  “There is no school to-morrow—­ergo, there cannot be a captain of a non-existent thing.  To-morrow is a dies non as far as I’m concerned.  Why this thirst for knowledge, Phil?”

“Because I want you to be my second against Acton, and I didn’t want your captaincy to aid or abet me in a thing which is against rules.”