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It was getting dark, and for the last, few minutes all the light in the room had been caused by a jet of gas in the coals. That jet now went out suddenly, leaving us in nearly total darkness.

“It was a Christmas Eve. Everybody else had gone home for the holidays, and Bubbles was the only boy left in the school–Bubbles and a master whose name I won’t mention.”

“He was the Detention Master, wasn’t he?” inquired Lamb’s voice.

“Ah, yes. There’s no harm in telling you that. Bubbles and the Detention Master were left all alone at Ferriby, Sparrow.”

“Ye–es,” said Sparrow softly, and making two syllables of the word.

“They’d had no hampers sent them, and as they sat round the fire that evening they knew both of them there was no Christmas dinner in the house. They had neither of them tasted food for some days, and had no money to buy any, and if they had had, the snow was too deep to get anywhere. They had tried making soup out of copybook covers, but it wasn’t nourishing, and the soles of their boots which they tried to eat didn’t sit well on their stomachs.”

Some one choked at this point, greatly to the speaker’s wrath.

“All right; some one seems to think it a laughing matter, so I’ll stop.”

“Oh no,” cried one or two voices eagerly, “do go on. He only got a piece of apple the wrong way.”

“Was it you laughed, Jim Sparrow?” demanded Fergus.

“Oh no,” replied Jim, who was holding on rather tight to the sides of his chair.

“I don’t like any one making fun of a serious thing like this,” said Fergus. “I was saying the soles of their boots didn’t sit well on their stomachs. They sat round the fire the whole evening, brooding and ravenous, and saying nothing. For a long time they both stared into the fire; then presently the master took his eyes off the fire and stared at Bubbles. Bubbles used to be fat, like you, Sparrow, but the last day or two he had got rather reduced. Still he was fairly plump; at least, so thought the master, as he looked first at him, then at the fire, and then thought of the empty larder downstairs.”

It was too dark to see Jim Sparrow, but I could almost hear him turn pale, so profound was the silence.

“The fire was a big one, a roaring one, and howled up the chimney as if it was hungry too. Bubbles where he sat was close to it, in fact, his feet almost touched the bars. The master sat a little behind Bubbles, and his arm rested on the back of Bubbles’s chair. `To-morrow,’ thought the master, `he will be thinner, and next day only skin and bone.’ Then he thought of the saying in the copy-books, `Never put off till to- morrow what you can do to-day.’ He sprang to his feet, seized Bubbles by the head and feet–there was a shriek and a yell–and next moment the master was alone in the room, and the chimney was on fire!”

At this last sentence the speaker, suiting the action to the word, had risen from his seat and suddenly pounced upon the unhappy Sparrow, who, already paralysed with terror, now fairly yelled and howled for mercy. Fergus dropped him back gently into his chair, and resuming his own seat, continued–

“There is very little to add. Under the ruins were found the remains of the master grasping in each hand a large-sized drumstick. Bubbles was never seen more. It was supposed he escaped without his legs on to the roof, and they do say that every Christmas Eve he revisits Ferriby, and tries to get down the chimney in search of his lost legs.”

At the conclusion of this tragic story every one drew a long breath. Jim Sparrow, it was clear, had swallowed it from beginning to end, and one or two others of the juniors looked as if they would have been more pleased had the event not been made to happen on Christmas Eve, of all nights. But with these exceptions the whole thing seemed a very good joke, and greatly to the credit of Fergus’s imagination.