"What are these little crystal sort of bits of stuff?" he asked, coming to a standstill before a large jar and opening it. "They look good to eat. Shall I try one?" "Don't you be an idiot," said the expert, looking up. "What have you got hold of? Great Scott, no, don't eat that stuff." "Why not? Is it poison?" "No. But it would make you sick as a cat. It's Sal Ammoniac." "Sal how much?" "Ammoniac. You'd be awfully bad." "All right, then, I won't. Well, what do you think of that thing? It'll be rough on Cook's, won't it? You see they advertise a special 'public-school' tea, as they call it. It sounds jolly good. I don't know what buckwheat cakes are, but they ought to be decent. I suppose now everybody'll chuck Cook's and go there. It's a beastly shame, considering that Cook's has been a sort of school shop so long. And they really depend on the school. At least, one never sees anybody else going there. Well, I shall stick to Cook's. I don't want any of your beastly Yankee invaders. Support home industries. Be a patriot. The band then played God Save the King, and the meeting dispersed. But, seriously, man, I am rather sick about this. The Cooks are such awfully good sorts, and this is bound to make them lose a tremendous lot. The school's simply crawling with chaps who'd do anything to get a good tea cheaper than they're getting now. They'll simply scrum in to this new place." "Well, I don't see what we can do," said Linton, "except keep on going to Cook's ourselves. Let's be going now, by the way. We'll get as many chaps as we can to promise to stick to them. But we can't prevent the rest going where they like. Come on." The atmosphere at Cook's that evening was heavily charged with gloom. ExSergeant Cook, usually a treasury of jest and anecdote, was silent and thoughtful. Mrs. Cook bustled about with her customary vigour, but she too was disinclined for conversation. The place was ominously empty. A quartette of school house juniors in one corner and a solitary prefect from Donaldson's completed the sum of the customers. Nobody seemed to want to talk a great deal. There was something in the air which _said as plain as whisper in the ear, "The place is haunted._" and so it was. Haunted by the spectre of that hideous, new, glaring red-brick building down the street, which had opened its doors to the public on the previous afternoon. "Look there," said Dunstable, as they came out. He pointed along the street. The doors of the new establishment were congested. A crowd, made up of members of various houses, was pushing to get past another crowd which was trying to get out. The "public-school tea at one shilling" appeared to have proved attractive. "Look at 'em," said Dunstable. "Sordid beasts! All they care about is filling themselves. There goes that man Merrett. Rand-Brown with him. Here come four more. Come on. It makes me sick." "I wish it would make _them_ sick," said Linton. "Perhaps it will.... By George!"