He examined the window; he examined the door; he cast a glance up the chimney. Nothing, however, appeared to have been touched or disturbed, and there was no soot on the floor. Cutting himself a piece of bread and cheese, lamenting at its dryness, and eating it as he went along, he proceeded out again, locking up his lodge as before. Of course he bent his steps to the cloisters, going to the west gate. And there, perhaps to his surprise, perhaps not, he found the gate locked, just as he might have left it himself that very evening, and the keys hanging ingeniously, by means of the string, from one of the studded nails, right over the keyhole. “There ain’t a boy in the school but what’ll come to be hung!” danced old Ketch in his rage. He would have preferred not to find the keys; but to go to the head-master with a story of their theft. It was possible, it was just possible that, going, keys in hand, the master might refuse to believe his tale. Away he hobbled, and arrived at the house of the head-master. Check the first!--The master was not at home. He had gone to a dinner-party. The other masters lived at a distance, and Ketch’s old legs were aching. What was he to do? Make his complaint to some one, he was determined upon. The new senior, Huntley, lived too far off for his lumbago; so he turned his steps to the next senior’s, Tom Channing, and demanded to see him. Tom heard the story, which was given him in detail. He told Ketch--and with truth--that he knew nothing about it, but would make inquiries in the morning. Ketch was fain to depart, and Tom returned to the sitting-room, and threw himself into a chair in a burst of laughter. “What is the matter?” they asked. “The primest lark,” returned Tom. “Some of the fellows have been sending Ketch an invitation to sup at Jenkins’s off tripe and onions, and when he arrived there he found it was a hoax, and Mrs. Jenkins turned him out again. That’s what Master Charley must have gone after.” Hamish turned round. “Where _is_ Charley, by the way?” “Gone after it, there’s no doubt,” replied Tom. “Here’s his exercise, not finished yet, and his pen left inside the book. Oh yes; that’s where he has gone!” CHAPTER XLI. -- THE SEARCH. “Tom, where is Charles?” “He is not in my pocket,” responded Tom Channing, who was buried in his studies, as he had been for some hours. “Thomas, that is not the proper way to answer me,” resumed Constance, in a tone of seriousness, for it was from her the question had proceeded. “It is strange he should run out in the abrupt way you describe, and remain out so long as this. It is half-past nine! I am waiting to read.” “The boys are up to some trick to-night with Mr. Calcraft, Constance, and he is one of them,” said Tom. “He is sure to be in soon.”