“Do you know,” said Wyatt, as he watched the Law shaking the water from itself on the other side of the pond, “I’m not half sure that we hadn’t better be moving!” CHAPTER IX BEFORE THE STORM Your real, devastating row has many points of resemblance with a prairie fire. A man on a prairie lights his pipe, and throws away the match. The flame catches a bunch of dry grass, and, before any one can realise what is happening, sheets of fire are racing over the country; and the interested neighbours are following their example. (I have already compared a row with a thunderstorm; but both comparisons may stand. In dealing with so vast a matter as a row there must be no stint.) The tomato which hit Wyatt in the face was the thrown-away match. But for the unerring aim of the town marksman great events would never have happened. A tomato is a trivial thing (though it is possible that the man whom it hits may not think so), but in the present case, it was the direct cause of epoch-making trouble. The tomato hit Wyatt. Wyatt, with others, went to look for the thrower. The remnants of the thrower’s friends were placed in the pond, and “with them,” as they say in the courts of law, Police Constable Alfred Butt. Following the chain of events, we find Mr. Butt, having prudently changed his clothes, calling upon the headmaster. The headmaster was grave and sympathetic; Mr. Butt fierce and revengeful. The imagination of the force is proverbial. Nurtured on motor-cars and fed with stop-watches, it has become world-famous. Mr. Butt gave free rein to it. “Threw me in, they did, sir. Yes, sir.” “Threw you in!” “Yes, sir. _Plop_!” said Mr. Butt, with a certain sad relish. “Really, really!” said the headmaster. “Indeed! This is--dear me! I shall certainly--They threw you in!--Yes, I shall--certainly----” Encouraged by this appreciative reception of his story, Mr. Butt started it again, right from the beginning. “I was on my beat, sir, and I thought I heard a disturbance. I says to myself, ‘’Allo,’ I says, ‘a frakkus. Lots of them all gathered together, and fighting.’ I says, beginning to suspect something, ‘Wot’s this all about, I wonder?’ I says. ‘Blow me if I don’t think it’s a frakkus.’ And,” concluded Mr. Butt, with the air of one confiding a secret, “and it _was_ a frakkus!” “And these boys actually threw you into the pond?” “_Plop_, sir! Mrs. Butt is drying my uniform at home at this very moment as we sit talking here, sir. She says to me, ‘Why, whatever _’ave_ you been a-doing? You’re all wet.’ And,” he added, again with the confidential air, “I _was_ wet, too. Wringin’ wet.” The headmaster’s frown deepened. “And you are certain that your assailants were boys from the school?” “Sure as I am that I’m sitting here, sir. They all ’ad their caps on their heads, sir.” “I have never heard of such a thing. I can hardly believe that it is possible. They actually seized you, and threw you into the water----”