“Adrian,” he said, “I am much pleased with you.  I don’t want to get you into a row, but I should be much obliged if you would tell me how all this happened.”

“It wouldn’t,” returned Adrian, “but for that Ted and the other chap.”

“Do you mean that there would have been none of this-—drinking-—but for them?  Don’t be afraid to tell me all.  Was the stuff all got from that Mrs. Schnetter—-?”

“Mother Butterfly’s?  Oh yes.  She keeps bottles of grog with those labels, and it is such a lark for her to be even with the gangers that our fellows generally get some after cricket, or for a tuck-out.”

“Not Fergus Merrifield?”

“Oh no; he’s captain, you know, but he is two years younger than Campbell and Horner, and they can’t bear him, and when he made a jaw about it—-he can jaw awfully, you know-—and he is stuck up, and Horner major swore he would make him know his bearings-—”

“I wonder he was there at all.”

“Well, Horner asked him, and he can’t get those fossils that were lost out of his head, and he thought they might be washed up.  He said too, he knew they would be up to something if he wasn’t there.”

“Oh!” said Clement, with an odd recollection, “but I suppose he did not know about these cadets?”

“No, the big Horner sent up to Mother Butterfly’s for some more stuff, not so mild, and then Ted set upon me, and said it was all because of me that Vale Leston had to live like a boiling of teetotal frogs and toads, just to please the little baronet’s lady mamma, but I was a Dutchman all the same, and should sell them yet-—I sucked it in so well, and they talked of seeing how much I could stand.  Something about my governor, and here—-that word in the Catechism.”

“Ah!” gasped Clement, fairly clutching his arm, “and what spared you?”

“Horner came down, and Sweetie Bob, that’s the errand-boy, and there was a bother about the money, for Bob wasn’t to leave anything without being paid, and while they were jawing about that, Merry laid hold of me and said, ‘Come and look for the aralia.’  They got to shouting and singing, and I don’t think they saw what was doing.  They were nasty songs, and Merry touched me and said, ’Let us go after the aralia.’  We got away without their missing us at first, but they ran after us when they found it out, and if you had not been there, Uncle Clem—-”

“Thank God I was!  Now, Adrian, first tell me, did you taste this stuff?  You said you sucked it in.”

“Well, I did, a little.  You know, uncle, one cannot always be made a baby.  Women don’t understand, you know, and don’t know what a fool it makes a man to have them always after him, and have everything put out of his way like a precious infant, and people drinking it on the sly like Gerald, or—-”

“Or me, eh, Adrian?  I can tell you that I never tasted it for thirty years, and now only as a medicine.  Lance, never.”