“Water!” he yelled. “Water! That’s what’s the matter. Oh, but I’d just like to know whether it’s that pale-faced Burns boy, or some of those other young imps in the house. I’ll find out. I’ll make somebody smart for this. Wasting my oil, too. I’ll make ’em pay for it.” The colonel set down the lamps, rushed out of his room into the hall for the lamp that usually occupied a standard there. He did not find it, because Henry Burns had taken the pains to remove it. The colonel made a sudden dash for Henry Burns’s door, rattled the door-knob and pounded, and then, finding that in his confusion he had failed to discover that it was unlocked, hurled it open and burst into the room. What the colonel saw was the pale, calm face of Henry Burns, peering out at him from the bed, as that young gentleman lifted himself up on one elbow. Around his forehead was bound the handkerchief, which he had wetted in the bowl of water. The lamp burning dimly completed the picture of his distress. “Hi, you there! You young—” The colonel checked himself abruptly, as Henry Burns slowly raised himself up in bed and pressed one hand to his forehead. “What’s the matter with you?” roared the colonel, completely taken aback by Henry Burns’s appearance. “Oh, nothing,” said Henry Burns, resignedly. “It’s nothing.” The colonel little realized how much of truthfulness there was in this answer. “Did you want me for anything?” asked Henry Burns, in his softest voice. “No, I didn’t,” said the colonel, sullenly. “Somebody has been fooling with my lamps, and I—I thought I would use yours, if you didn’t mind.” “Certainly,” replied Henry Burns. “I may not need mine again for the rest of the night.” Again he pressed his hand dismally to his forehead. “I won’t take it!” snapped the colonel. “You may need it again. Why don’t you tell Mrs. Carlin you’ve got a headache? She’ll look after you. It’s eating too much—eating too much, that does it. I’ve always said it. Stop stuffing two pieces of pie every day at dinner, and you won’t have any headache.” With this parting injunction, the irate colonel abruptly took his departure, slamming the door behind him. Henry Burns dived beneath the bedclothes and smothered his roars of laughter. The colonel, disappointed in his quest for a lamp, and not caring to search further in his present condition of undress, returned once more to his room and finished undressing in the dark. “I’ll make somebody smart for this to-morrow,” he kept repeating. “Like as not that little white-faced scamp in the next room had some hand in it. I can’t quite make him out. Well, I’ll go to bed and sleep over it.” The colonel rolled into bed.