"Well, it's safe enough there," he murmured, looking round him. He had been only a few minutes at work, and there was no one in sight. "And nobody's noticed," he added, strolling off in the direction of the school.
Still pondering the matter of the Black Star and all the trouble and excitement it had brought in its train, he was passing a clump of thorn-bushes, called by the College "Willy-Whiskers," when the hum of voices was borne to his ears by the breeze.
"Hullo!" said Jack, and pulled up. The place Willy-Whiskers was used, nowadays, only as a fighting-ground, when some particularly important encounter was mooted. Here the spectators could yell to their hearts' content, without fear of being "dropped on" by a passing master. Jack wondered. Was a fight in progress?
Irresolutely he moved forward; the sounds were totally unlike those usually accompanying schoolboy battles. Instead, it looked much as if there was a meeting of some sort being held in the heart of the thick tangle of thorn, the quaint shape of which had given it its name.
"... Those rotten Crees ... we'll be able ... shock of their lives ..." came the words, with significant gaps; and Jack immediately considered it his business to investigate. He thought that this was a meeting of the Calamitous Cripples, the rival society to the Crees—and he was not mistaken.
Approaching silently in the long grass, Jack Symonds peered curiously through the interstices of the jungle-like mass of thorn. There was Cummles, the renegade Cree, holding the floor, as usual; his fellows were asking him questions, to which he was replying confidently.
"We'll reel off as many copies of the notice as we'll want," he was saying. "The Crees will all fall for the wheeze, and everything should go well, with ordinary luck."
"How about the notice?" asked one of the Cripples.
"I've got a copy of it here," said Cummles; "we've got a jelly thingummy in our study that'll print off as many sheets as you like. I'll read it: 'Dear brother Cree, This is to let you know that a special banquet is being given by the under-signed in honour of Jack Symonds, Chief Cree, in the old Science room on Friday night next, at half-past nine. As it is intended as a surprise to the Chief, the matter must be kept a secret from him and his immediate friends. All Crees to be present. Signed, S. Fane.'"
"That's all right!" agreed the Cripples, readily. "But how does it go on then?"