"Quite so," said Todd, chuckling. "I suppose you've given me a specimen of Biffen's latest brand of wit. Well, don't make too big a row in hunting for your copper, and then I'll not chuck you out." Grim murmured something disparaging Todd's authority for chucking out, but Gus languidly sidled off to his own particular bench, where, out of sight of Grim, he prepared to do an afternoon's quiet work. Meanwhile Grim's particular cronies, Wilson, Rogers, Sharpe, Poulett, and young Bourne, arrayed in all the glory of mud-stained footer-togs, after vainly waiting outside Biffen's, were seeking high and low for the copper-hunting chemist, who, for many reasons, had kept his afternoon's plan very dark. He knew only too well that his beloved chums would not hear of an afternoon's work, and would head him off either to footer or a run round the Bender. Therefore, immediately after dinner, he had made an unostentatious exit, and reached the laboratory in safety. "Where _is_ Grimmy?" said Sharpe. "Dunno," said Wilson. "Did he know of our six-a-side against Merishall's lot?" "Rather! Said he hoped we'd win." "_We!_ Why, is he backing out, then?" "Well, we've waited for him half an hour, and there's no sign of him yet--look's like it." "What is up with him, I wonder?" said Poulett. "Seemed rather mysterious this morning--rather stand-offish to my idea. Perhaps, though, he's only guzzling buns or swilling coffee somewhere. Let's see." The quintette thereupon spread themselves out, but every shop was drawn blank. "Rum!" said Rogers. "Where can the ass be?" "If we knew, Solomon, would we try to find out?" said Sharpe. "I say, you fellows--I've got an idea about Grimmy. Didn't Lancaster give him a leg-up for his chemistry the other day? Permission to footle in the lab. on half-holidays, and all the rest of it? Grim was no end cocky over that." "Grimmy waste a 'halfer' bottle-washing! Rot! That isn't his form, Wilson." "If," said Poulett, impressively, "he _has_ sunk so low, we must give him an 'elpin' 'and, pore feller!" "Rather. If Lancaster has put the cover over old Grimmy we must get him out somehow. Let's adjourn to see." The honourable five forthwith moved over to the laboratory, and Grim received his beloved cronies with hot blushes and a rather nervous manner. "I say, you chaps, what do you want?" "What did we want?" said Bourne, as though he'd forgotten it. "What was it, Rogers?" "A fellow, formerly Grimmy, not a nasty bottle-washer," said Rogers, more in sorrow than in anger. "But yesterday and Grimmy was an average back, and now he's holding up some filthy brew to the sunlight to see how muddy it is. Oh, my great aunt!" chimed in Wilson. "How are the mighty fallen!" gasped Sharpe. "Look here, you fellows--" began Grim, with still more vivid blushes mantling his noble face. "'Ear, 'ear! speech! speech! withdraw! apologize!"