Presently he arrived at his friend's cubicle. It possessed no door, and the moonlight illuminated the interior quite plainly, in spite of the fact that the lower half of the window was obscured by a human form--the form, in fact, of the owner of the cubicle. He was leaning far out, and was apparently endeavouring to communicate with some one in the garden below. No; he was hauling something up! Pip could see the regular motion of his elbow as the line came in hand over hand. What had this midnight fisherman hooked? And who had put the fish on the hook for him? And what on earth--? Suddenly the motion of Linklater's elbow ceased. Still intent on his employment, he stepped back a pace and scientifically "landed" his quarry. Simultaneously Pip realised that this performance was not intended for the public eye. He must either take official notice of it or go back to bed. He went back to bed. "I wonder," he said to himself, as he settled down under the clothes again, "if they ever wrap up anything _but_ bottles in those straw things? He can't have taken to drink! Atkins, of course, daren't supply him with any more, so he must be--But surely he doesn't find it as necessary as all that! Perhaps it's only cussedness. Let's hope so! Poor old Link! In the morning I'll--" Here Pip joined the well-modulated _concerto_. * * * * * Pip's sleepy surmises had been more or less correct. It _was_ a bottle, but Linklater had not taken to drink. It was, as Pip opined, chiefly "cussedness." Pip, argued Linklater, had suddenly turned religious, and by a most unwarrantable parade of muscular Christianity had compelled him, Linklater, the idol of the school, to eat humble pie and then efface himself. But not even Pip should stop his fun. He would show his independence! Hence the bottle of highly inferior whiskey, obtained at an appalling cost from an individual known to the boys as the One-Eyed Tout, who resided in the adjacent village, and whose visits to the school (events which the vigilance of the authorities rendered infrequent and furtive) were invariably for some nefarious purpose. It is true that Linklater did not like whiskey, though plenty of hot water and sugar enabled him to swallow it with a fair show of enjoyment. But it was forbidden fruit. Few of us, from Eve downwards, have ever been able to withstand that temptation, and, as his dormitory parties had been perforce discontinued, Linklater conceived the happy notion of giving a "small and early" in his own study. And on these hospitable thoughts intent he invited Kelly and Hicks to "look in" directly after prayers if they wanted "a little something, hot."