Devereux did not know it, and the information was opportune in every way. It reminded him that Mrs. Rutter had been a lady, and it reminded Jan himself that all his people had not sprung from the stables. It made him distinctly less liable to say “the Miss Christies” or “Master Evan.” Above all it introduced the general topic of cricket, in which Chips and his statistics got a chance at last, so that in argument alone a mile went like the wind. Chips could have gained full marks in any paper set on the row of green and red booklets in his shelves. He was a staunch upholder of Middlesex cricket, but Jan and Evan were Yorkshire to the marrow, and one of them at least was glad to be heart and soul with the other in the discussion that followed. It was not a little heated as between Carpenter and Devereux and it lasted the trio until they tramped almost into the straggling and deserted street of the village famous for its haunted house. “I suppose it’s at the other end of the village. We shan’t see it yet a bit.” Jan spoke with the bated breath and sparkling eye of the born adventurer; and Chips whispered volubly of ghosts in general; but Evan Devereux became silent for the first time. He was the smallest of the three boys, but much the most attractive, with his clean-cut features, his auburn hair, and that clear, radiant, tell-tale skin which even now was saying something that he found difficult to put into so many words. “Aren’t haunted houses rather rot?” Such was his first attempt. “Rather _not_!” cried Chips, the Tiger concurring on appeal. “Still, it strikes me we’re bound to be seen, and it seems rather a rotten sort of row to get into.” Carpenter was amused at the ostensible superiority of this view. It was hardly consistent with a further access of colour for which Chips was waiting before it came. He knew Devereux of old at their private school, and that what he hated above all else was getting into a row of any description. Jan might have known it, too, by the pains he took to reduce the adverse chances to decimals. Nobody was about, to see them; nobody who did would dream of reporting chaps; but for that matter, now there were three of them, one could keep watch while the other two explored. The house was no better than an empty ruin, if all Jan had heard was true, but they must have a look for themselves now that they were there. It was one of the two things worth doing at that school, let alone the games, and you had to go in for them, whether you liked them or not. “What’s the other thing?” asked Evan, with a bit of a sneer, as became one who had been longer in the school and apparently learnt less. “Molton Tunnel.” “Yes, I have heard of that. Some fellows are fool enough to walk through it, aren’t they?” “Some who happen to have the pluck,” said Chips, taking the answer on himself. “There aren’t too many.” “Are you one?” inquired sarcastic Evan.