For all that, I had observed the Dux's confusion, and the sight of it made me very uncomfortable on his account. Faulkner was right. It would be precious awkward for any one who might be discovered to possess a pistol. The fact that firearms were expressly forbidden at Dangerfield College was itself, I am sorry to say, a strong presumption in favour of Tempest having one. Besides, I had myself once heard him speak about shooting rooks at home with a pistol. Oddly enough, chance was to put in my way a means of setting my mind at rest almost immediately. "I say, kid," said the Dux, as I entered the schoolroom just before the time, "I've left my Latin grammar in my locker upstairs. Look sharp, or you'll be late again and catch it." That was his style all over--insult and injury hand in hand. He only practised it on fellows he really liked, too. "I say, I can't," pleaded I. "Plummer will give it me hot if he catches me again. I've got it pretty bad as it is." "I know you have; that's why I tell you to look sharp." It was no good arguing with Tempest. I knew he would risk his neck for me any day. That would be much less exertion to him than running upstairs. So I went. The Dux's locker, I grieve to say, was a model of untidiness. Cricket flannels, eatables, letters, tooth-powders, books, and keepsakes were all huddled together in admired disorder to the full extent of the capacity of the box. The books being well in the rear of the heap, and time being precious, I availed myself of the rough-and-ready method of emptying out the entire contents at one fell swoop and extracting the particular object of my quest from the _debris_. I had done so, and was proceeding to huddle up the other things into a compact block of a size to fit once more into the receptacle, when something fell from the pocket of one of the garments with a clatter to the floor. It was a pistol! With a face as white and teeth as chattering as if I had seen a ghost, I instinctively pounced upon the tell-tale weapon, and whisked it, with a shudder, into my own pocket. Then, with decidedly impaired energy, I punched the bundle back into its place, slammed down the lid, and returned to the schoolroom just in time to regain my place before Dr Plummer made his entry. "You'll give yourself heart-disease if you rush up and down stairs like that," said Tempest as I handed him the book. "You look fishier than ever." "Latin grammar, juniors," announced the doctor. "Close books. Jones, stand up and decline _gradus_."