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The Triple Alliance

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quite natural they should want to pay him out for doing it. As they're such good boys, I don't suppose they'll try anything of the kind; but we might undertake the job, and do it for them." The speaker paused to see if he had been understood. "What!" exclaimed Thurston bluntly, "you mean, play Grice a trick and make it appear they'd done it because of this rumpus about locking the door?" "That's about it," returned the other, laughing. "What could we do better?" Noaks murmured his approval of the scheme, but Gull and Hawley were silent. To tell the truth, since the big row following their attack on Browse had put a stop to any further chance of card-parties and other amusements in Thurston's study, their attachment to the ex-prefect had considerably lessened. Like many others of their kind, they were thoroughly selfish at heart, and saw no good in running any personal risk to settle the quarrels of a third person. The party feeling which had characterized the last school elections, and caused for the time being a spirit of ill-will and opposition towards the school leaders, had just about died a natural death; and if another public meeting had been called in the gymnasium, not half a dozen fellows would have shouted for Thurston, or allied themselves against the side of law and order. All this had tended to make Hawley and Gull lukewarm in their adherence to the cause. Noaks, however, who would have paid any price for the privilege of being able to hobnob with those who were in any higher position than himself, was ready to follow his two Sixth Form cronies to any extreme they might suggest. "Well," he inquired, "and what's to be the trick?" "I only just thought of one on the spur of the moment," answered Fletcher; "but if no one else has a better to suggest, I daresay it'll do. We might screw up little Grice's bedroom door so as to get him down late in the morning; his room's right away at the end of the passage. There is a screw-driver belonging to Oaks lying in one of the empty lockers--it has his name on the handle; and if we happened to drop it as we came away, I think that in the face of this row it would look uncommonly like his doing. D'you twig?" There was something so mean and cowardly in this scheme, and in the manner in which the proposal was made, that even Thurston gave vent to an exclamation of contempt. "So that's your little game, is it?" he inquired. "Yes, that's it; that's my little project for putting a stop to the Wraxby match. There'll be an awful row, and the doctor'll keep the team from going. Now, then, who'll do the trick?--Will you, Hawley?" "No fear," answered Hawley. "Gull and I did most of the last two blow-ups; it's some one else's turn now. Suppose you do it yourself, as it's your idea." Fletcher frowned: in matters of this sort he liked to make the plans and get others to execute them. "Well, I was thinking one of you might," he began. "Oh, bother!" interrupted Thurston, whose revengeful spirit had been once more aroused by the mention of the Wraxby match--"it's nothing; you and I'll do it." "And I'll help if you like," added Noaks, who thought the present occasion a good opportunity to distinguish himself. "All right," continued Thurston: "you go down town and get some screws, Noaks--two or three good long ones." "Well, we'll fix to-morrow night," said Fletcher. "Keep awake, and meet at the top of B staircase, say at one o'clock; then there's no fear but what every one'll be asleep." The Triple Alliance had for some hours ceased to puzzle their brains over either Virgil or cipher notes, and the whole of Ronleigh College was apparently wrapped in slumber, when three shadowy figures assembled on the landing at the top of staircase B, and proceeded noiselessly along the corridor, and down the side passage at the end of which Mr. Grice's room was situated. "Have you got the screws?" "Yes," answered Noaks, producing a twist of paper from his pocket. "Don't you think I'd better go and keep _cave_ at the top of the stairs?" whispered Fletcher. "No," returned Thurston; "Noaks can do that. I'll make the two holes, and you must put the screws in; you're the best carpenter of the lot." Standing in the cold, dark passage, the work seemed to take ages to perform; but at length it was finished. "Hist! what are you doing?" Fletcher had produced a scrap of paper from his pocket, and was seemingly about to slip it under the door. "I want to make certain that it shall be put down to Oaks," he whispered; "so in case the screw-driver should be overlooked, I'm going to slip this under the door for Grice to find in the morning." Thurston glanced at the paper, and saw printed thereon in bold capitals the following inscription:-- "BE IN TIME BY THE SCHOOL CLOCK." CHAPTER XXI. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND. Work at Ronleigh commenced with a sort of half-hour's preliminary practice in the various classrooms; the school then assembled for prayers, after which came breakfast. During the progress of this meal on the Friday morning, in the small hours of which had been enacted the scene described at the end of the previous chapter, it became evident that "something was up." The table, at which sat most of the boys of the Third Form, was in a state of great disorder, while the discussion of some topic of unusual interest seemed to be occupying the attention of the prefects. It was not, however, until after the boys had swarmed out of the dining-hall that the reason of this subdued commotion became generally known; and then, like the sudden report of an explosion, every one seemed to become acquainted with the news at the same moment. Mr. Grice had been screwed up in his bedroom! Oaks and Allingford had done it! The doctor had summoned them to meet him in his study! It was from a member of the Third Form that the Triple Alliance heard the particulars of what had happened. "'Little Grice,'" said this young gentleman, whose own height was about four feet two inches--"'little Grice' never turned up until just before the bell rang for prayers, and then he was simply bursting with rage, and told us all about it. They'd put a note under his door telling him to be in time by the school clock; and besides that, when one of the men went to get him out, he found a

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