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“No, she didn’t, young gentleman; and I can tell you you’ll get to know how to spell her name tolerable well before you’ve heard the last of her.”

“Oh, of course we shall get into a frightful row,” said Bowler; “but how did you come to find us?”

“Why, one of you artful young scholards left a letter to his ma on his table, open for everybody to see, talking some gammon about a West Indian island, and saying you was going to lay hold of the Long Stork, to get your hands in. I can tell you you have got your hands in, my beauties. There’s a cart-load of birches been ordered for you at the school already.”

These awful warnings failed to counteract the satisfaction of our heroes at finding themselves nearly back again in the region of blankets and hot porridge. Bowler in the name of the party magnificently presented Thomson with the odd shilling reserved for his benefit, and expressed his sorrow it was not more. But, he added, if the “Eliza” ever turned up, he might keep everything he found on board, including twelve tins of shrimps and peaches, a bottle of hair-oil, a set of cricket bails, and a copy of Young’s Night Thoughts; whereat Thomson was moved with gratitude, and said they were as nice a lot of articles as ever he came across, and he did not mind saying so.

An hour later our heroes were all in bed, comfortable within and without. They were let down easy for their day’s escapade, and except for colds more or less bad, and a decidedly augmented bill at the end of the term to pay for a new “Eliza,” as well as a regulation forbidding all sea voyages of whatever kind, they suffered no further punishment than the lessons of the day itself. To those lessons they added one more of their own accord, by resolving unanimously, that from that day forward they renounced all further claim to that eligible island commonly known as New Swishford.