Shoeblossom sat disconsolately on the table in the senior day-room. Hewas not happy in exile. Brewing in the senior day-room was a merevulgar brawl, lacking all the refining influences of the study. You hadto fight for a place at the fire, and when you had got it 'twas notalways easy to keep it, and there was no privacy, and the fellows werealways bear-fighting, so that it was impossible to read a book quietlyfor ten consecutive minutes without some ass heaving a cushion at youor turning out the gas. Altogether Shoeblossom yearned for the peace ofhis study, and wished earnestly that Mr Seymour would withdraw theorder of banishment. It was the not being able to read that he objectedto chiefly. In place of brewing, the ex-proprietors of studies five,six, and seven now made a practice of going to the school shop. It wasmore expensive and not nearly so comfortable--there is a romance abouta study brew which you can never get anywhere else--but it served, andit was not on this score that he grumbled most. What he hated washaving to live in a bear-garden. For Shoeblossom was a man of moods.

　　Give him two or three congenial spirits to back him up, and he wouldlead the revels with the _abandon_ of a Mr Bultitude (after hisreturn to his original form). But he liked to choose his accomplices,and the gay sparks of the senior day-room did not appeal to him. Theywere not intellectual enough. In his lucid intervals, he was accustomedto be almost abnormally solemn and respectable. When not promoting someunholy rag, Shoeblossom resembled an elderly gentleman of studioushabits. He liked to sit in a comfortable chair and read a book. It wasthe impossibility of doing this in the senior day-room that led him totry and think of some other haven where he might rest. Had it beensummer, he would have taken some literature out on to the cricket-fieldor the downs, and put in a little steady reading there, with the aid ofa bag of cherries. But with the thermometer low, that was impossible.

　　He felt very lonely and dismal. He was not a man with many friends. Infact, Barry and the other three were almost the only members of thehouse with whom he was on speaking-terms. And of these four he saw verylittle. Drummond and Barry were always out of doors or over at thegymnasium, and as for M'Todd and De Bertini, it was not worth whiletalking to the one, and impossible to talk to the other. No wonderShoeblossom felt dull. Once Barry and Drummond had taken him over tothe gymnasium with them, but this had bored him worse than ever. Theyhad been hard at it all the time--for, unlike a good many of theschool, they went to the gymnasium for business, not to lounge--and hehad had to sit about watching them. And watching gymnastics was one ofthe things he most loathed. Since then he had refused to go.

　　That night matters came to a head. Just as he had settled down to read,somebody, in flinging a cushion across the room, brought down the gasapparatus with a run, and before light was once more restored it wastea-time. After that there was preparation, which lasted for two hours,and by the time he had to go to bed he had not been able to read asingle page of the enthralling work with which he was at presentoccupied.

　　He had just got into bed when he was struck with a brilliant idea. Whywaste the precious hours in sleep? What was that saying of somebody's,"Five hours for a wise man, six for somebody else--he forgot whom--eightfor a fool, nine for an idiot," or words to that effect? Five hourssleep would mean that he need not go to bed till half past two. In themeanwhile he could be finding out exactly what the hero _did_ do whenhe found out (to his horror) that it was his cousin Jasper who hadreally killed the old gentleman in the wood. The only question was--howwas he to do his reading? Prefects were allowed to work on after lightsout in their dormitories by the aid of a candle, but to the ordinarymortal this was forbidden.

　　Then he was struck with another brilliant idea. It is a curious thingabout ideas. You do not get one for over a month, and then there comesa rush of them, all brilliant. Why, he thought, should he not go andread in his study with a dark lantern? He had a dark lantern. It wasone of the things he had found lying about at home on the last day ofthe holidays, and had brought with him to school. It was his custom togo about the house just before the holidays ended, snapping upunconsidered trifles, which might or might not come in useful. Thisterm he had brought back a curious metal vase (which looked Indian, butwhich had probably been made in Birmingham the year before last), twoold coins (of no mortal use to anybody in the world, includinghimself), and the dark lantern. It was reposing now in the cupboard inhis study nearest the window.

　　He had brought his book up with him on coming to bed, on the chancethat he might have time to read a page or two if he woke up early. (Hehad always been doubtful about that man Jasper. For one thing, he hadbeen seen pawning the old gentleman's watch on the afternoon of themurder, which was a suspicious circumstance, and then he was not a nicecharacter at all, and just the sort of man who would be likely to murderold gentlemen in woo............