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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Triple Alliance

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"Yes," answered Diggory; "I suppose it would look rather fishy. Bother him! why can't he leave us alone?" CHAPTER XI. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS. The Easter holidays came and went as rapidly as Easter holidays always do, and before the Alliance had recovered from the excitement connected with their first experience of breaking up at Ronleigh, they were back again, greeting their friends, asking new boys their names, and, in short, commencing their second term as regular old stagers. Up to the present they had been content to "lie low," and had remained satisfied with making the acquaintance of their class-mates in "The Happy Family;" but now they began to take more interest in school matters in general, and to notice what was going on in other circles besides their own. In answer to the eager inquiries of his two companions, Jack Vance said that he had seen nothing of Noaks during the holidays, except having passed him on one or two occasions in the street. The notice of the fifty pounds reward still appeared in the windows of the police station; but the robbery itself was beginning to be looked upon as a thing of the past, and was already wellnigh forgotten. "I wonder if Noaks has still got my knife?" said Mugford. "Oh, I don't know," answered Jack. "He's too much taken up with Mouler and Gull and all that lot to think about us. I shouldn't bother my head about it any further; he only showed us that paper out of spite, to put us in a funk." It was pretty evident, to the most casual observer, that the quarrel which the Black Swan incident had occasioned between Thurston and his brother prefects had not yet been dismissed from the minds of either party. The former became more lax than ever in the discharge of his duties, and avoiding the society of his school equals, sought the companionship of such boys as Hawley, Gull, and Mouler, who at length came to be known throughout the College as "Thirsty's Lot." With the exception of Fletcher, the prefects left him severely alone. Allingford occasionally came down on him for allowing all kinds of misconduct to pass unchecked, but it was hardly to be expected that a fellow who was hand and glove with some of the principal offenders should have much influence or power in maintaining law and order; and these interviews with the captain usually ended in an exchange of black looks and angry words. The consequences which resulted from this lack of harmony among those in authority may be easily imagined. "Old Thirsty never makes a row when he sees a chap doing so-and-so," was the cry. "Why should Oaks and Rowlands and those other fellows kick up bothers, and give lines for the same thing?" To all these murmurers the prefects turned a deaf ear. "I don't care what Thurston does," would be their answer; "you know the rule, and that's sufficient." Any further remonstrance on the part of the offender was met with a summary "Shut up, or you'll get your head punched," and so for a time the matter ended. It was hardly to be expected that the light-hearted juveniles of the Third Form should trouble their heads to take much notice of this disagreement among the seniors. For one thing, they knew nothing of what was said and done in the Sixth Form studies, and even the prefects themselves never thought for a moment that this little bit of friction in the machinery of Ronleigh College would, figuratively speaking, lead to "hot bearings" and a narrow shave of a general breakdown. So the members of "The Happy Family" pursued the even tenor of their way, getting into scrapes and scrambling out of them, feasting on pastry and ginger-beer, turning up in force on Saturday afternoon to witness the cricket matches, and coming to the conclusion that though Oaks and Rowlands might be a trifle strict, and rather freehanded with lines and "impots," yet all this could be overlooked and forgiven for the sake of the punishment which they inflicted on the enemy's bowling. As it has been all along the intention of this story to follow the fortunes of the Triple Alliance, the record of their second term at Ronleigh would not be complete without some mention of their memorable adventure with the "coffee-mill." Wednesday, the fourteenth of June, was Jack Vance's birthday, and just before morning school he expressed his intention of keeping it up in a novel manner. "Look here!" he remarked to his two companions. "You know that little bootmaker's shop just down the road, before you come to the church. There's a notice in the window, 'Double Tricycle on Hire.' Well, the mater's sent me some money this year instead of a hamper, so I thought I'd hire the machine; and we'll go out for a ride, and take it in turns for one to walk or trot behind." "Oh, I'd advise you not to!" cried "Rats," who was standing by and overheard the project. "Why not?" "Why, it's a rotten old _sociable_, one of the first, I should think, that was ever made. It's like working a tread-mill, and it rattles and bangs about until you think every minute it must all be coming to pieces. It's got a sort of box-seat instead of a saddle. Maxton hired it out one day the term before last, and he and I and Collis rode to Chatton. It isn't meant to carry three; but the seat's very wide, and they squeezed me in between them. There's something wrong with the steering-gear, and it makes a beastly grinding noise as it goes along, so Maxton christened it the 'coffee-mill.' Fellows are always chaffing old Jobling about it, when they go into his shop to buy bits of leather, and asking him how much he'll take for his coffee-mill, and the old chap gets into an awful wax." "Oh, I don't care!" answered Jack. "It'll be a lark, and we needn't go far.--What d'you say, Diggy?" Diggory and Mugford both expressed their willingness to join in the expedition, and arrangements were accordingly made for it to take place that afternoon. "You'd better not let old Jobling see three of you get on at once," said "Rats." "I should send Mugford on in front and pick him up when you get round the corner." Rathson's description of the "coffee-mill" was certainly not exaggerated. It was a rusty, rattle-bag concern--a relic of the dark ages of cycling--and .looked as if it had not been used for a twelvemonth. Jobling squirted some oil into the bearings, knocked

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