"Rumsey! Elmore! Who's been in my room?" "Been in your room?" echoed Mr. Rumsey. "How should I know?" Then added, as if it were the result of a second thought: "We just saw Wheeler come out." "Wheeler?" In his turn, Mr. Taylor played the part of echo. "He just came rushing past me; I wondered what his haste meant. You saw him come out of my room? Then---- But he can't have done a thing like that!" "Like what? Anything wrong?" "There seems to be something very much wrong. Do you mind coming here?" Retracing their steps, Mr. Rumsey and Elmore joined the agitated Mr. Taylor in his room. He made clear to them the cause of his agitation. "You see this bag? It contained to-day's tuck-shop takings--more than ten pounds. I left it, with the money tied up in it, on the table here while I went to Perrin to fetch a memorandum I'd forgotten. Now that I've returned, I find the bag lying on my table empty and the money apparently gone. That's what's wrong, and the question is, who has been in my room since I left it?" "As I told you, Elmore and I just saw Wheeler making his exit rather as if he were pressed for time." "And I myself just met him scurrying along, and wondered what the haste was about; he's not, as a general rule, the fastest of the pages. The boy has a bad record; there was that story about Burge minor and his journey money, and there have been other tales. If he was in my room----" "Perhaps he was sent on an errand to you." "I doubt it, from the way he was running when I met him. And, so far from stopping when he saw me, if anything, he went faster than ever. It looks very much as if----" He stopped, leaving the sentence ominously unfinished. "Master Wheeler may be a young rip, but surely he wouldn't do a thing like that." This was Rodney, who notoriously never spoke ill of anyone. Mr. Taylor touched on his well-known propensity. "That's all very well, Elmore; but you'd try to find an excuse for a man who snatched the coat off your back. This is a very serious matter; ten pounds are ten pounds. The best thing is for you to bring Wheeler here, and we'll have it out with him at once." Rodney started off to fetch the page. It was some little time before he returned. When he did he was without his cricket-bag, and gripped the obviously unwilling page tightly by the shoulder. That the lad's mind was very far from being at ease Mr. Taylor's questions quickly made plain. "Wheeler, Mr. Rumsey and Mr. Elmore just saw you coming out of my room. What were you doing here?" Wheeler, looking everywhere but at his questioner, hesitated; then stammered out a lame reply. "I--I was looking for you, sir." "For me? What did you want with me? Why did you not say you wanted me when you met me just now?" Wheeler could not explain; he was tongue-tied. Mr. Taylor went on: