"What's in the wind?" Paul asked himself, when he was alone. "Bitter as Stanley is against me, he can't have set on his cousin to hoax and poke fun at me. Surely not?"
What was it, then? He could not guess; but it seemed to him that he must have sunk very low indeed in the eyes of the school when he had become a target for the junior forms.
"I must put my foot down on that nonsense," he said to himself, as he paced to and fro the room.
At first he thought of making straight for Baldry and Moncrief minor, and demanding what it meant; but on second thoughts he decided against that course, because it would mean mischief to Hibbert. His life at the school would be made more miserable than it was.
"The best thing after all will be to face it—to accept the invitation of Masters Moncrief and Baldry to the Forum to-night. I run the risk of being laughed at, I know, but I'm getting fairly used to that. And it's just possible I may be able to turn the tables."
Having come to this decision, Paul did the wisest thing possible under the circumstances—dismissed the matter from his mind, and went on with his work.
Now it so happened that a meeting of the Fifth had really been called for that evening in the Forum, and still stranger to relate, for the express purpose of discussing Paul. The information that he had been seen in the company of Wyndham, and had actually shaken hands with him, had quickly spread, and the meeting of the Fifth had been called for the express purpose of considering this further development in the feud between the Beetles and the Gargoyles. No notice of this meeting had, however, been sent to Paul.
So it was that about the time Paul was getting ready to go to the Forum, little suspecting the proposed meeting, Newall had already started for it, just as ignorant of the little plot that had been hatched by certain members of the Third. Leveson had had some lines which had kept him late in the class-room, and Newall had taken his place in getting the shed ready for the meeting. Thus it happened he was in advance of the rest.
It was quite dark as Newall made his way to the shed. Harry Moncrief was hiding at the side, with his whistle between his teeth. The figure coming towards the shed in the darkness he took to be the figure of Paul.
"He's up to time," he chuckled to himself. "He's fallen into the trap beautifully."