The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. McTurk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking English once more. “Turkey, it was immense!” said Stalky, generously. “I didn’t know you had it in you. You’ve got us a hut for the rest of the term, where we simply _can’t_ be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, Fids! I gloat! Hear me gloat!” They spun wildly on their heels, jodeling after the accepted manner of a “gloat,” which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man’s song of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just in time to meet their house-master, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the “wuzzy.” Unluckily, all Mr. Prout’s imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims most sourly. Boys that he understood attended house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket--even house-matches; Beetle’s views on the honor of the house he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently--since human nature is what it is--those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very serious, but... “_Ti-ra-ra-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining-hall. “_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” Beetle spun behind him with outstretched arms. “_Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu_! I gloat! Hear me!” McTurk’s voice cracked. Now was there or was there not a distinct flavor of beer as they shot past Mr. Prout? He was unlucky in that his conscience as a house-master impelled him to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to little Hartopp’s rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate led him to King, a fellow house-master, no friend of his, but a zealous hater of Stalky & Co. “Ah-haa!” said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. “Curious! Now _my_ house never dream of doing these things.” “But you see I’ve no proof, exactly.” “Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it! I suppose it is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered at least a match for any evasive boy in my house. Of course they were smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They think it manly.” “But they’ve no following in the school, and they are distinctly--er--brutal to their juniors,” said Prout, who had from a distance seen Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag.