"Oh, only a wheel! Let's see, what was it last time?"
"Another wheel. You see, there are two, and——"
"There generally are two. Look here, Darrell, I'm sick of this nonsense. You not only shirk your own work, and get into trouble with your form master, but you disturb the other fellows and keep them from work. Come along to the Scholars' room after supper. I shall give you a whacking."
And, as a matter of course, Masters would be grinning delightedly as Clive went back to his seat, while Hugh or Bert or Susanne would pass short notes of compassion to him. Sometimes they were shot over the heads of the others in the form of darts, duly labelled with the name of Darrell. Or they were passed from hand to hand, or better still, the wily Susanne's invention, they were rolled into the shape of a fine pencil, inserted in a pea-shooter, and sent hurtling at the head of the one for whom the correspondence was intended. Let us record, too, that Susanne became an expert with this instrument. Such was his dexterity, and such his strength of lung, that with the aid of wet blotting-paper rolled into balls, and essentially of red colour, he could actually eject them at the high ceilings of the form rooms, where the moist condition of the shot caused it to adhere, and—so good was the aim after long practice—that with patience and a sufficiency of these moist pellets Susanne could write his name on the ceiling. That term many a form room ceiling bore in thin lines of red dots the letters Feofé, with "Susanne" close alongside in brackets.
But there was the question of the aeroplane meeting to be settled.
"Masters will see Higgins and fix it," Clive explained to Hugh in a hoarse whisper, when they were seated at prep. that evening. "It's lucky that to-morrow's a saint's day. That'll give us heaps of time, for the meeting don't begin till after midday."
Numerous were the notes which passed between Clive and Masters and Hugh during that hour and a half's prep. The many items to be settled caused the exchange of missives even when they had reached their dormitories, and that fascinating, home-made telephone being as yet incomplete, and, in fact, stubbornly refusing to work in spite of the scientific aid and knowledge of Susanne, they had recourse yet again to the weird series of wheels and strings passing over the partition. And, of course, as fate would have it on this the most important of occasions, Sturton discovered what was happening.
"What the dickens——" he suddenly demanded, swinging round in the chair in which he was seated at the dormitory table. "Here, Darrell, up to something more? I told you last week I wouldn't have any further chucking of notes over the partition. Suppose it's to young Seymour again? Bring that note here."
It was a desperate moment. Clive clambered out of bed and stepped across to the prefect, the note in his hand.
"Here it is," he said grudgingly, eyeing Sturton askance, for that note contained a résumé of the details of their escapade of the morrow. Dished up in finished style, as it were, were full particulars of their intended movements. Anyone glancing through the scrawly and badly spelled lines could not fail but discover the depths of the conspiracy.