Thurston turned on the speaker with a sudden burst of anger.

"Oh yes!" he exclaimed; "you're always saying you'd do this and do that, but when the time comes you turn tail and sneak away. Look here: you were the one who proposed going into the Black Swan this morning, and when young Mouler said Allingford was coming, you slipped out of the back door and left us to face the shindy."

"Well," returned the other, laughing, "I thought you chaps were going to bolt too. I hopped over the wall at the back into the field, and waited there for about a quarter of an hour, and then, as no one came, I made tracks home."

"That's all very fine. You took precious good care to save your own bacon; you always do."

"Oh, go on!" answered Fletcher, rising from his chair; "you're in a wax to-night. Well, ta, ta! Don't you resign."

This little pa.s.sage of arms was not the first of the kind that had taken place between Fletcher and Thurston, and it did not prevent a renewal of their friendship on the morrow.

The latter, following either his own inclination or the advice of his chum, decided not to resign his position as a prefect, and in a few days' time the majority of the school had wellnigh forgotten the fracas at the Black Swan.

Among those in high places, however, the affair was not so easily overlooked. The big fellows kept their own counsel, but it soon became evident that Thurston was being "cut" and cold-shouldered by the other members of the Sixth; while he, for his part, as though by way of retaliation, began to hob-n.o.b more freely than ever with boys lower down in the school and of decidedly questionable character.

"It's awfully bad form of a chap who's a prefect chumming up with a fellow like Mouler in the Upper Fourth," said Carton one afternoon.

"I wonder old 'Thirsty' isn't ashamed to do it. And now he's hand and glove with those chaps Hawley and Gull in the Fifth; they've both got heaps of money, but they're frightful cads."

From the morning following their return to Ronleigh the Triple Alliance had been kept in a continual state of uneasiness and suspense, wondering what action Noaks would take regarding his discovery of their visit to The Hermitage.

The days pa.s.sed by, and still he made no further reference to the matter, and took no notice of any of the three friends when he happened to pa.s.s them in the pa.s.sages. The fact was that for the time being his attention was turned in another direction. Like most fellows of his kind, Noaks was a regular toady, ready to do anything in return for the privilege of being able to rub shoulders occasionally with some one in a higher position than himself, and he eagerly seized the opportunity which his friendship with Mouler afforded him of becoming intimate with Thurston. It was rather a fine thing for a boy in the Upper Fourth to be accosted in a familiar manner by a prefect, and asked sometimes to visit the latter in his study; and when such things were possible, it was hardly worth while to spend time and attention in carrying on a feud with youngsters in the Third Form. But Noaks had never forgotten the double humiliation he had suffered at Chatford--first in being sent off the football field, and again in the disastrous ending to the attempted raid on the Birchites' fireworks; nor had he forgiven the Triple Alliance for the part which they had played, especially on the latter occasion, in bringing shame and confusion on the heads of the Philistines.

One morning, nearly a month after the half-term holiday, the three friends were strolling arm in arm through the archway leading from the quadrangle to the paved playground, when they came face to face with their old enemy. He was about to push past them without speaking; then, seeming suddenly to change his mind, he pulled up, took something from his pocket, and handing it to Jack Vance, said shortly,--

"There! I thought you'd like to see that; it seems a good chance to earn some pocket-money."

The packet turned out to be a copy of the Todderton weekly paper.

"I've marked the place," added Noaks, turning on his heel with a sneering laugh; "you needn't give it me back."

A cross of blue chalk had been placed against a short paragraph appearing under the heading "Local Notes." Jack read it out loud for the edification of his two companions.

"We notice that Mr. Fossberry has offered a reward of 50 pounds for any information which shall lead to the arrest of the thieves who entered his house some few weeks ago, and stole a valuable collection of coins.

As yet the police have been unable to discover any further traces of the missing property, but it is to be hoped that before long the offenders will be discovered and brought to justice."

There was a moment's silence.

"I wish I'd told my guv'nor," muttered Jack Vance.

"Well, tell him now," said Diggory.

"Oh no, I can't now; he'd wonder why I hadn't done it sooner. Besides, I believe Noaks is only doing this to frighten us; he can't prove that we stole the coins, because we didn't. All the same, it would be very awkward if he sent the police that jack-knife, and told them he'd seen us climbing out of the old chap's window."

"Yes," answered Diggory; "I suppose it would look rather fishy.

Bother him! why can't he leave us alone?"

CHAPTER XI.

SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS.

The Easter holidays came and went as rapidly as Easter holidays always do, and before the Alliance had recovered from the excitement connected with their first experience of breaking up at Ronleigh, they were back again, greeting their friends, asking new boys their names, and, in short, commencing their second term as regular old stagers. Up to the present they had been content to "lie low," and had remained satisfied with making the acquaintance of their cla.s.s-mates in "The Happy Family;"

but now they began to take more interest in school matters in general, and to notice what was going on in other circles besides their own.

In answer to the eager inquiries of his two companions, Jack Vance said that he had seen nothing of Noaks during the holidays, except having pa.s.sed him on one or two occasions in the street. The notice of the fifty pounds reward still appeared in the windows of the police station; but the robbery itself was beginning to be looked upon as a thing of the past, and was already wellnigh forgotten.

"I wonder if Noaks has still got my knife?" said Mugford.

"Oh, I don't know," answered Jack. "He's too much taken up with Mouler and Gull and all that lot to think about us. I shouldn't bother my head about it any further; he only showed us that paper out of spite, to put us in a funk."

It was pretty evident, to the most casual observer, that the quarrel which the Black Swan incident had occasioned between Thurston and his brother prefects had not yet been dismissed from the minds of either party. The former became more lax than ever in the discharge of his duties, and avoiding the society of his school equals, sought the companionship of such boys as Hawley, Gull, and Mouler, who at length came to be known throughout the College as "Thirsty's Lot."

With the exception of Fletcher, the prefects left him severely alone.

Allingford occasionally came down on him for allowing all kinds of misconduct to pa.s.s unchecked, but it was hardly to be expected that a fellow who was hand and glove with some of the princ.i.p.al offenders should have much influence or power in maintaining law and order; and these interviews with the captain usually ended in an exchange of black looks and angry words.

The consequences which resulted from this lack of harmony among those in authority may be easily imagined. "Old Thirsty never makes a row when he sees a chap doing so-and-so," was the cry. "Why should Oaks and Rowlands and those other fellows kick up bothers, and give lines for the same thing?" To all these murmurers the prefects turned a deaf ear.

"I don't care what Thurston does," would be their answer; "you know the rule, and that's sufficient." Any further remonstrance on the part of the offender was met with a summary "Shut up, or you'll get your head punched," and so for a time the matter ended.

It was hardly to be expected that the light-hearted juveniles of the Third Form should trouble their heads to take much notice of this disagreement among the seniors. For one thing, they knew nothing of what was said and done in the Sixth Form studies, and even the prefects themselves never thought for a moment that this little bit of friction in the machinery of Ronleigh College would, figuratively speaking, lead to "hot bearings" and a narrow shave of a general breakdown.

So the members of "The Happy Family" pursued the even tenor of their way, getting into sc.r.a.pes and scrambling out of them, feasting on pastry and ginger-beer, turning up in force on Sat.u.r.day afternoon to witness the cricket matches, and coming to the conclusion that though Oaks and Rowlands might be a trifle strict, and rather freehanded with lines and "impots," yet all this could be overlooked and forgiven for the sake of the punishment which they inflicted on the enemy's bowling.

As it has been all along the intention of this story to follow the fortunes of the Triple Alliance, the record of their second term at Ronleigh would not be complete without some mention of their memorable adventure with the "coffee-mill."

Wednesday, the fourteenth of June, was Jack Vance's birthday, and just before morning school he expressed his intention of keeping it up in a novel manner.

"Look here!" he remarked to his two companions. "You know that little bootmaker's shop just down the road, before you come to the church.

There's a notice in the window, 'Double Tricycle on Hire.' Well, the mater's sent me some money this year instead of a hamper, so I thought I'd hire the machine; and we'll go out for a ride, and take it in turns for one to walk or trot behind."

"Oh, I'd advise you not to!" cried "Rats," who was standing by and overheard the project.

"Why not?"

"Why, it's a rotten old _sociable_, one of the first, I should think, that was ever made. It's like working a tread-mill, and it rattles and bangs about until you think every minute it must all be coming to pieces. It's got a sort of box-seat instead of a saddle. Maxton hired it out one day the term before last, and he and I and Collis rode to Chatton. It isn't meant to carry three; but the seat's very wide, and they squeezed me in between them. There's something wrong with the steering-gear, and it makes a beastly grinding noise as it goes along, so Maxton christened it the 'coffee-mill.' Fellows are always chaffing old Jobling about it, when they go into his shop to buy bits of leather, and asking him how much he'll take for his coffee-mill, and the old chap gets into an awful wax."

"Oh, I don't care!" answered Jack. "It'll be a lark, and we needn't go far.--What d'you say, Diggy?"

Diggory and Mugford both expressed their willingness to join in the expedition, and arrangements were accordingly made for it to take place that afternoon.

"You'd better not let old Jobling see three of you get on at once," said "Rats." "I should send Mugford on in front and pick him up when you get round the corner."

Rathson's description of the "coffee-mill" was certainly not exaggerated. It was a rusty, rattle-bag concern--a relic of the dark ages of cycling--and .looked as if it had not been used for a twelvemonth. Jobling squirted some oil into the bearings, knocked the dust off the cushioned seat, and remarked that a shilling an hour was the proper charge; but that, as he always favoured the Ronleigh gentlemen, he would say two shillings, and they might keep it the whole afternoon.

Jack, as we have said before, was of rather a nautical turn of mind, and occasionally, when the fit was on him, loved to interlard his conversation with seafaring expressions.

"She isn't much of a craft to look at," he remarked, as they drew up and dismounted at the spot where Mugford stood waiting for them; "but we'll imagine this is my steam-yacht, and that we're going for a cruise.

Now then, Diggy, you're the mate, and you shall sit on the starboard side and steer. Mugford's the pa.s.senger, so he'll go in the middle.

I'm captain, and I'll work the port treadles. Now, then, all aboard!"