Under Edgar’s beneficent sway, I managed to get into the most complicated row that ever schoolboy found himself immersed in, for I committed three capital (or rather fundamental) offences in one joyous swoop. In the first place, I concealed five shillings of sterling silver about my person, though all cash derived from “tips” had to be given up to the matron, and by her doled out as she thought suitable. This clandestine millionaire thereupon bribed a fellow-conspirator to break bounds and go into Richmond, there to spend four of those shillings in Turkish delight, and keep the fifth for his trouble. He got back safely, and three friends had a wonderful feast in the dormitory that night, all sitting on my bed, and cloying ourselves and the bedclothes with that delicious sweetmeat. Unfortunately there was amongst those midnight revellers one stomach so effete and spiritless that it revolted at the administration of these cloying lumps, and, prostrated with sickness, the owner of it confessed to an unusual indulgence, while the state of my sheets completed the evidence. The chain went back link by link from his sickness to my bed, and from my bed to the finding of the empty Turkish delight box, and from the Turkish delight to the place it came from, and from the place it came from to the money wherewith it was purchased, so that I was left in as the unrivalled culprit in the reconstructed story. But though I should have swooned with anxiety and probably confessed all, had Waterfield been the Sherlock Holmes, I never gave a moment’s thought to Edgar’s unravelling. He said I had been very naughty, and sucked his eyeglass, and hoped I wouldn’t be naughty again. It was all very polite and pleasant, and I knew I had nothing to fear from him. But even at the time I had a secret misgiving as to the Judgment Book that should soon be opened at this page. The best thing, probably, that I could have done would have been to write home instantly and tell my father all about it, for that would certainly have seemed to him the proper course, and also he would have blown off part of his displeasure in a letter. But I continued to procrastinate, and before many weeks the term mildly ebbed away. Then with a sudden _crescendo_ my misgivings increased, and it was a very unholiday-minded urchin who went back that December for Christmas at Truro.