The Gold Bat

he out-of-the-way nooks and dens at the top of the buildings where the mathematical masters were wont to lurk, and spent a pleasant two hours there playing round games or reading fiction un

s in Mr Banks' class. Mr Banks was a master who simply cried out to be ragged. Everything he did and said seemed to invite the members of his class to amuse themselves, and they amused them

Mr Morgan it was not quite so easy to date one's expulsion from the room under ordinary circumstances, and in the normal wear and

had been built round it, others that it had been placed in the room in infancy, and had since grown. To refer the question to Mr Morgan would, in six cases out of ten, mean instant departure from the room. But to make the event certain, it was n

ning. O'Hara would then so arrange matters with Mr Banks that they could meet in the passage a

at the trysting-place

he Irishman in O'Hara. Consequently he felt in particularly good form for mathematics (as he interpreted the word). He thought that he would have no difficulty whatever in keeping Mr Banks bright and amused. T

d worked out each sum in his neat handwriting to a happy ending. When the head of the form, to whom they were passed first, had finished with them, he would make a slight tear in one corner, and, having done so, han

ed Mr Banks, in the repressed voice of on

ttered solutions

rringay, the he

ou tear these sol

, "Did you make this small tear in the top left-hand corner of these solutions?" Harringay would have scorned to deny the impeachment.

," said

own

s,

hese solutions

, s

through

of the debater who is conscious that

-" he

wn, Har

lly waved aside t

mong my--ahem--fellow-students, when I say that this class sincerely regret

r!" from a

is w

wn, Har

ith hear

if you do no

ip pleases." T

d his seat amidst ap

s just sat down was

e whole form will rem

erely regretted by this class. Sir, I think I am ixprissing the general consensus

Har

s,

e room in

s,

and closed the door after him, when a roar as of a bereaved spirit rang through the room opposite, followed by a string of words, the only intelligible

top of which made a very comfortable seat. They

wanted to tell me?

he had learned from

t Mill's study had been ragged, that it might be the League that had done it. If ye rememb

stand them doing i

body they choose till

caught, there

in the previous year, but, by reason of putting on a stone since the competition, was now no longer eligible for that class. O'Hara had not been up before, but the Wrykyn instructor, a good judge of pugilistic form, was of opinion that he ought to stand an excellen

ould be any good in a

tirely. I say, I'm getting rather tired of sitting here, aren't yo

debris at the top of the cupboard, and rolle

d never run the risk involved in holding mass-meetings in one another's studies. On the last occasion, it had been an old quarry away out on the downs. This had been proved by the not-to-be-shaken testimony of three school-house fags, who had wandered out one half-holiday with the unconcealed intention of finding the League's place of meeting. Unfortunately for them, they had found it. They were going down the path that led t

did not recognise the runner. But it puzzled him a little to think where he had sprung from. O'Hara was walking quite close to the wall of the College buildings, and the runner had passed between it and him. And he had not heard his footsteps. Then he understood, and his pulse quickened as he felt that he was on the track. Beneath the block was a large sort of cellar-basement. It was used as a store-room for c

basement soon after school. It was as black as pitch

ob, when a ray of light cut through the blackness in front of him, and somebody slipped through

s from in the dark. He plunged forward at a venture. His hand, swinging round in a semicircle, met something whi