As Tom and the rest of the eleven were turning back into the close, and everybody was beginning to cry out for another country-dance, encouraged by the success of the night before, the young master, who was just leaving the close, stopped him, and asked him to come up to tea at half-past eight, adding, “I won’t keep you more than half an hour, and ask Arthur to come up too.”

“I’ll come up with you directly, if you’ll let me,” said Tom, “for I feel rather melancholy, and not quite up to the country-dance and supper with the rest.”

“Do, by all means,” said the master; “I’ll wait here for you.”

So Tom went off to get his boots and things from the tent, to tell Arthur of the invitation, and to speak to his second in command about stopping the dancing and shutting up the close as soon as it grew dusk.  Arthur promised to follow as soon as he had had a dance.  So Tom handed his things over to the man in charge of the tent, and walked quietly away to the gate where the master was waiting, and the two took their way together up the Hillmorton road.

Of course they found the master’s house locked up, and all the servants away in the close—­about this time, no doubt, footing it away on the grass, with extreme delight to themselves, and in utter oblivion of the unfortunate bachelor their master, whose one enjoyment in the shape of meals was his “dish of tea” (as our grandmothers called it) in the evening; and the phrase was apt in his case, for he always poured his out into the saucer before drinking.  Great was the good man’s horror at finding himself shut out of his own house.  Had he been alone he would have treated it as a matter of course, and would have strolled contentedly up and down his gravel walk until some one came home; but he was hurt at the stain on his character of host, especially as the guest was a pupil.  However, the guest seemed to think it a great joke, and presently, as they poked about round the house, mounted a wall, from which he could reach a passage window.  The window, as it turned out, was not bolted, so in another minute Tom was in the house and down at the front door, which he opened from inside.  The master chuckled grimly at this burglarious entry, and insisted on leaving the hall-door and two of the front windows open, to frighten the truants on their return; and then the two set about foraging for tea, in which operation the master was much at fault, having the faintest possible idea of where to find anything, and being, moreover, wondrously short-sighted; but Tom, by a sort of instinct, knew the right cupboards in the kitchen and pantry, and soon managed to place on the snuggery table better materials for a meal than had appeared there probably during the reign of his tutor, who was then and there initiated, amongst other things, into the excellence of that mysterious condiment, a dripping-cake.  The cake was newly baked, and all rich and flaky; Tom had found it reposing in the