“It’s only to show how things go against a chap, no matter what he does,” said the kid. “This term I have been flogged for licking Carlo, and caned three times since for other things, which were more bad luck than anything else; and now I’ll be flogged again to-morrow for absolute certain.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s a jolly muddle. You know Steggles?”
“Yes, you’re a fool to go about with him,” I said.
“Perhaps I was. Anyway, Steggles and me made a plot to get some of the medlars from the tree on the lawn, and we minched out after dark to do it. They’re simply allowed to fall and rot on the ground, which is a waste of good tuck, Steggles says. We went out about ten o’clock last night, past Browne’s study window; and we looked in from the shrubbery to see the window open, and soda-water and whiskey and pipes on the table; but no Browne, strange to say. Then we sneaked on, and Steggles suddenly heard something and got funky, but I kept him going. We reached the tree and Steggles lighted his bull’s-eye lantern, so as to collect the medlars, when suddenly out from behind the tree itself rushed a man. We hooked it like lightning, naturally, and I never saw Steggles go at such a pace in my life, and he stuck to his lantern, too; but I tripped and fell, and before I could get up the man had collared me. If you’ll believe it, the man was Browne! He asked me who the other chap was, and I said I couldn’t be quite sure; so he told me to go back to bed, which I did. That was last night; and the one medlar we had time to get Steggles had eaten before I got back, which shows what Steggles is. To-day Browne will tell the Doctor. He always chooses the evening after prayers, so that he can work the Doctor up with his stories and get a chap flogged right away; because it often happens when Doctor Dunston says he’ll flog a chap next day he doesn’t do it.”
“And what is Steggles going to do?”
“He says he is watching events. He also says that Browne was certainly stealing the Doctor’s medlars himself, and really we surprised him, not he us; but, of course, Steggles says it’s no good my telling the Doctor that. Steggles also says that he’s got an idea which may come to something. I don’t know; but he’s a very cute chap. I’ve got to keep out of the way after prayers to-night, and Steggles is going to watch Browne. He won’t tell me his plan. I thought once that perhaps he meant giving himself up for me, and I asked him, and he said I ought to know him better.”
Tomlin then cleared out, and as the Doctor took Slade and me for a short Greek lesson every evening after prayers, because of special examinations, I had the good luck to see the end of the business that very night.
We’d just got to work by the Doctor’s green-shaded reading-lamp when Browne came in with his grovelling way, pretending he was awfully sorry for having to round on Tomlin, but that his duty gave him no option, and so on.
“Last night,” he said, “I was sitting correcting exercises in my study when I fancied I saw a form steal across the grass outside. Thinking some vagabond might be in the grounds, I dashed out and followed as quickly as possible. Presently I saw a light, and noted two figures under the medlar-tree. Fearing they might be plotting against the house, I went straight at them, and, to my astonishment, saw that they were only boys. One darted away, and I failed to catch him; the other, I much regret to say, was Tomlin.”