ALIAS BILLY FARADAY
For almost a minute the three chums stared in hypnotized fashion at the bent head of Fane, as the bully-killer sat dispiritedly in his chair.
"You mean you—" gurgled Billy at length.
"I'm awfully sorry, old pal, but there it is," said Fane, with the stolid calmness of despair. "I'd give anything to be able to say I'm mistaken, but it's no go. I see my mistake now. The coat's just the dead ringer of one I've got myself, and like an ass, I mistook them. Only just now, when you mentioned Billy's coat being missing, I remembered that my own coat hasn't been unpacked."
The four boys were silent for several seconds. The sharp, sudden blow, the renewed assurance from Fane that the coat had actually gone, left the three pals dumbfounded.
"Well," said Jack gloomily, "it's gone, right enough. We've lost it."
"Billy, Billy!" cried Fane, "it was my fault absolutely. I don't know what made me so terribly careless. I'm no end cut up about it—isn't there anything I can do?"
"Nothing suggests itself at the moment," said Patch, with a recovery of his calm manner. "The thing would be, of course, to get hold of the hawker and buy the coat back. But—" He shook his head, with pursed lips. Then, all at once, he smacked Jack heavily upon the back—so heavily that Jack indignantly jumped a foot in the air.
"Great Caesar!" he gasped, "What did you do that for, you giddy lunatic? You've dislocated my neck!"
"Bother your neck!" cried Septimus. "I've got the plan to get back the spiffing old Star—we're in luck! It's brother Egbert!"