shaking his stick, and in a towering rage, he went off to the school to interview its head.

“By George, the fat’s in the fire now!” cried Wheeler, with a laugh which was not altogether cheerful. “Phil, there’ll be an awful row. What shall we do?”

“Wait and see,” answered Phil easily. “We’ve had our joke, and a good one it was, and perhaps we shall have to pay for it.”

Meanwhile Mr Julius Workman had reached the school, and had asked for Mr Ebden. He was shown into the library, and there, as he waited and thought over the matter, his rage, instead of decreasing, grew even more violent, so that when the pleasant-faced little master entered, and in his cheery voice said, “Ah, Mr Workman! this is a pleasure I had not expected,” the stout old gentleman was beyond himself, and could scarcely speak.

“Pleasure, sir! Pleasure!” he spluttered at last. “It’s no pleasure to me, sir; let me tell you that. I have a serious complaint to make. What have you to say, sir?”

He stared at Mr Ebden as though the latter had had a hand in the prank.

“A complaint, Mr Workman? I don’t understand,” said Mr Ebden with astonishment.

“Yes, you do, sir; yes, you do,” the irate old gentleman shouted rudely. “Why don’t you look after your boys? I told you they were a nuisance, and now they’ve played a trick on me and ruined my statue of Hercules.”

When Mr Ebden had heard the full details of the prank he too was extremely angry, or pretended to be so, and at once accompanied Mr Workman to inspect the ruined statue. Then, with a heavy frown on his usually pleasant face, he returned and summoned all the boys before him. Mr Julius Workman was also present, and glowered round at them as though he would like to do everyone some mischief.

“You’ve got to find out who did it, or there’ll be trouble,” he remarked significantly to Mr Ebden, as the latter was about to speak.

Now, the boys at Ebden’s were, naturally, unaware of the peculiar reason their master had for keeping on good terms with “Old Bumble”, but this remark struck them as peculiar, and Phil, thinking it over, and being a quick-witted lad, grasped its meaning, and determined at once to give himself up.

“I’m the biggest fellow here,” he thought, looking round at his companions, “and though I’m not the eldest by some months, I’m usually the leader in these scrapes.”

“Boys,” said Mr Ebden severely, scrutinising each one of them in turn, and speaking slowly and distinctly, “a foolish and most objectionable prank has been played upon one of the statues in the gardens. Mr Workman declares that one of you is guilty. Is this so?”

“Of course it is,” grunted “Old Bumble” angrily. “What’s the good of asking if they did it? Of course they did!”

Mr Ebden took no notice of the interruption, but looked at his pupils, who stared guiltily at one another, knowing well that each had been a party to the plot, and yet waiting for one to give the lead before the others acknowledged.

Phil stepped forward in front of his comrades, and with upright head, and eyes fixed straight on Mr Ebden’s, said:

“Yes, sir, it is so. I tarred and feathered the statue, and I’m sorry Old B—Mr Workman—is so angry.”

“Old B! What did the scamp almost call me?” shouted Mr Workman, working himself into another rage. “You are a scamp, sir, and a disgrace to the school!”

“I am sorry, sir,” Phil said again. “I did it for a joke only, and now I’ll clean the statue if Mr Ebden will allow me.”

But this was out of the question. The boys were dismissed, and a long conversation ensued between Mr Ebden and the irate old gentleman. After that work proceeded as usual, but, knowing that it was Mr Ebden’s invariable rule to allow twenty-four hours to elapse before deciding upon the punishment for any serious offence, Phil did not permit his hopes to rise, or imagine that he was to get off easily.

And, as it turned out, he was right. After mature consideration Mr Ebden summoned the boys, and having read them a lecture, gave Phil the severest caning he had ever experienced in his life, all of which that high-spirited lad bore without so much as a whimper. Then he punished somewhat more mildly the three others who had helped in the prank, and who, not to be behindhand or allow one to suffer for the fault of all, had addressed a note to the headmaster the previous evening confessing their guilt.

“I cannot tell you how annoyed I am,” said Mr Ebden in cold tones, which hurt his pupils far more than the cane. “You have aided and abetted one another in destroying a work of art, and you have deeply offended one with whom it was a matter of policy for me to be on good terms. Those four who did the actual tarring will have to pay for another statue out of their own pockets, and I shall communicate with their parents. Now you may go, and let there be no more of this foolishness.”