Fergus coloured up, speechless between pleasure at the warm tone of commendation and the obligations of school-boy honour, nor, with young Campbell on their hands, was there space for questions. That youth subsided into a heavy doze in the cab, and so continued till the arrival at No. 7, Devereux Buildings, where a capable-looking maid-servant opened the door, and he was deposited into her hands, the Vicar leaving his card with his present address, but feeling equal to nothing more, and hardly able to speak. He drove home, finding his nephew in the doorway. Signing to the maid to pay the driver, and to the boy to follow him, he reached his study, and sank into his easy-chair, Adrian opening frightened eyes and saying-- “I’ll call Sibby.” “No--that bottle--drop to there,” signing to the mark on the glass with his nail. After a pause, while he held fast the boy, so to speak, with his eyes, he said-- “Thank you, dear lad.” “Uncle Clement,” said Adrian then, “we weren’t doing anything. Merrifield thought his old bit of auralia, or whatever he calls it, was there.” “I saw--I saw, my boy. To find you--as you were, made me most thankful. You must have resisted. Tell me, were you of this party, or did you come on them by accident?” “Horner asked me,” said Adrian, twisting from one leg to another. Clement saw the crisis was come which he had long expected, and rejoiced at the form it had taken, though he knew he should suffer from pursuing the subject. “Adrian,” he said, “I am much pleased with you. I don’t want to get you into a row, but I should be much obliged if you would tell me how all this happened.” “It wouldn’t,” returned Adrian, “but for that Ted and the other chap.” “Do you mean that there would have been none of this--drinking--but for them? Don’t be afraid to tell me all. Was the stuff all got from that Mrs. Schnetter--?” “Mother Butterfly’s? Oh yes. She keeps bottles of grog with those labels, and it is such a lark for her to be even with the gangers that our fellows generally get some after cricket, or for a tuck-out.” “Not Fergus Merrifield?” “Oh no; he’s captain, you know, but he is two years younger than Campbell and Horner, and they can’t bear him, and when he made a jaw about it--he can jaw awfully, you know--and he is stuck up, and Horner major swore he would make him know his bearings--” “I wonder he was there at all.” “Well, Horner asked him, and he can’t get those fossils that were lost out of his head, and he thought they might be washed up. He said too, he knew they would be up to something if he wasn’t there.” “Oh!” said Clement, with an odd recollection, “but I suppose he did not know about these cadets?”