Mr. Blake listened to their story in silence, then all at once he burst out laughing, and without a word turned on his heel and went quickly upstairs. He entered the attic, and in about half a minute they heard him coming back.
"Ha, ha! I've got your ghost; I've been trying to lay him for some time past."
The jingle of a chain was distinctly audible; Mr. Blake was evidently bringing the spectre down in his arms! Diggory and Vance could no longer restrain their curiosity; they hopped out of bed and glanced round the corner of the door. The master held in his hand a rusty old gin, the iron jaws of which were tightly closed upon the body of an enormous rat.
"There's a monster for you!" he said; "I think it's the biggest I ever saw. He'd carried the trap, chain and all, right across the room, but that finished him; he was as dead as a stone when I picked him up. Now get back to bed; I should think you're both nearly frozen."
Diggory and Jack Vance followed the advice given to Kennedy and Jacobs, and did so rather sheepishly. They felt they had been making tools of themselves; yet it would never have done to own to such a thing.
"What a lark!" said the new boy, after a few moments' silence.
"Wasn't it!" returned Jack Vance; "it's the best joke I've had for a long time. But we didn't pay those fellows out for throwing those snowballs; we must do it some other night. And now we three must swear to be friends, and stand by each other against all the world, and whatever happens. What shall we call our room?"
"I know," answered Diggory: "we'll call it 'The Triple Alliance!'"