At last the Doctor actually stood by him. "Well, my boy," he said, not unkindly, "I'm not afraid of anything wrong here, at any rate." Mr. Bultitude, who had the best reasons for not sharing his confidence, made some inarticulate sounds, and pretended to have a difficulty in turning the key. "Eh? Come, open the box," said the Doctor with an altered manner. "What are you fumbling at it for in this--this highly suspicious manner? I'll open it myself." He took the key and opened the lid, when the cakes and wine stood revealed in all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh, Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour by denouncing the very crime it conceals in its playbox! Bultitude, I was not prepared for such duplicity as this!" "I--I swear I never put them in!" protested the unhappy Paul. "I--I never touch such things: they would bring on my gout in half-an-hour. It's ridiculous to punish me. I never knew they were there!" "Then why were you so anxious to avoid opening the box?" rejoined the Doctor. "No, sir, you're too ingenious; your guilt is clear. Go to your dormitory, and wait there till I come to you!" Paul went upstairs, feeling utterly abandoned and helpless. Though a word as to his real character might have saved him, he could not have said it, and, worse still, knew now that he could not. "I shall be caned," he told himself, and the thought nearly drove him mad. "I know I shall be caned! What on earth shall I do?" He opened the door of his bedroom. Coggs was rocking and moaning on his bed in one corner of the room, but looked up with red furious eyes as Paul came in. "What do you want up here?" he said savagely. "Go away, can't you!" "I wish I _could_ go away," said Paul dolefully; "but I'm--hum--I'm sent up here too," he explained, with some natural embarrassment. "What!" cried Coggs, slipping off his bed and staring wildly: "you don't mean to say you're going to catch it too?" "I've--ah--every reason to fear," said Mr. Bultitude stiffly, "that I am indeed going to 'catch it,' as you call it." "Hooray!" shouted Coggs hysterically: "I don't care now. And I'll have some revenge on my own account as well. I don't mind an extra licking, and you're in for one as it is. Will you stand up to me or not?" "I don't understand you," said Paul. "Don't come so near. Keep off, you young demon, will you!" he cried presently, as Coggs, exasperated by all his wrongs, was rushing at him with an evidently hostile intent. "There, don't be annoyed, my good boy," he pleaded, catching up a chair as a bulwark. "It was a misunderstanding. I wish you no harm. There, my dear young friend! Don't!"