"Mr Rollitt," said Yorke, "we are your son's schoolfellows. A great wrong has been done him. He has been suspected of being a thief, and has run away. We all now know that he's not a thief; and we are ashamed that he has ever been suspected. We hope he will come back, so that we may tell him so. But there is one fellow here who still says your son is a thief, although he knows as well as we do he isn't. What shall we do to him?" Mr Rollitt looked up and down, casting a glance first at his young protectors at the end of the Hall, then scanning the benches before him, then running his eye along the row of prefects, and finally taking the measure of Yorke as he stood and waited for an answer. Then suddenly the question seemed to come home. "My son Alf a thief? There's one of 'em says that, is there? My son Alf a thief? Do to him! Why, I'll tell you. Just keep him till my son Alf comes back, and make him go and say it to his face. That's what _I_ should do to him, young gents." "That's what we will do," said Yorke. "The meeting is over." And amid the excitement that ensued, the rush to put down names for the new club, the cheers and hootings and hand-shakings of old enemies, Mr Rollitt was carried off in triumph by his nine hosts to high tea in Wally Wheatfield's room. CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. THE WATCH-TOWER. Wally's study--he always liked to call it a "study," but his friends preferred to call it a den--could comfortably accommodate six. The juniors had frequently to own that nine, the normal size of the party, was a jam. When, in addition to that, a big, brawny man was thrown in, it came to be a serious question as to how the four walls would sustain the strain. Wally, however, was determined to manage somehow. He indignantly rejected Percy's offer to his more spacious apartment over the way. No. He had captured the lion--he and D'Arcy--and they would entertain him in their own den. After all, it was not so bad. It only meant letting the fire out and putting one chair in the fender, and shoving the other end of the table (which had been doubled in length by the addition of the table out of a neighbouring room, that was within four inches of the same height) close up against the door, which it was just possible to shut. As, however, the door opened outwards, it was necessary for the gentleman occupying the foot of the table to sit out in the passage, much to the inconvenience of the casual passers-by. To a shy man like Mr Rollitt, it was a difficult position to find himself the honoured guest of nine young gentlemen like these. "Thank'ee kindly, young masters," said he, when Ashby relieved him of his hat and Fisher minor of his bag, and Percy undermined him with a chair, and Cottle handed him the _Boy's Own Paper_, and Cash came in with a hassock, and D'Arcy put a railway rug over his knees.