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The imprisoned trio had not had a very lively time that afternoon in the punt-house. The door remained obstinately shut, and neither Todd nor his two companions relished a swim in the moat as the price of freedom.
"No thanks. Is this punt-house your usual lounge?" "Sometimes," said Mehtah. "We can't do without our smoke, and we can't do it, you know, at the school." "No, that you jolly well can't, my dusky Othello. But aren't you two booked for the Houser's this afternoon? I thought you were the backbone of Biffen's." "The match is not for an hour yet," said Lamb.
"If we can't do it, well, we didn't know Gussy was in eh?" "Rather! That is the exact fable we'll serve out to Todd, if necessary." Breaking cover, the young Biffenites had secured the door of the punt-house without any difficulty, and then had run for dear life. "Golly!" said Rogers, pulling up when well out of sight of the boat-house; "we did that rather neat, eh?
For three hours Gus remained a half-voluntary prisoner; but, when he judged it safe, he created such a pandemonium that young Hill hurried out of the farm stable, thinking there must be some weird tragedy taking place at the punt-house. He had hurried across and let the trio out. The dervishes got a mixed reception from Biffen's crowd.
"Oh yes," said Mehtah, "we're going to sit on your house this afternoon, Todd." At this most interesting point of the conversation the door of the punt-house was violently slammed to, and Gus was propelled forward clean into the punt and received hurriedly into the unexpectant arms of Burnt Lamb.
Arrived at the punt-house, Gus peeped in through the slightly open door, and discovered no less important personages than Runjit Mehtah and "Burnt Lamb." The two dervishes were lolling luxuriantly on the punt cushions, each smoking a fine fat cigar, and the combined efforts of the two gave quite an Oriental air of magnificence to the ramshackle boat-house. "Hallo!" said Gus.
Worcester was almost eloquent in his language, and Acton was calmly indifferent. "But I tell you, Worcester, some beast locked us in the punt-house." "I wish they'd kept you there," said Dick, unmollified. Whilst Worcester was swallowing his tea, Rogers and Wilson craved audience. Their faces were as long as fiddles.
Before any of the three could understand what had happened there was a hurried fumbling with the staple and pin of the punt-house door from the outside, and then an equally hurried retreat of footsteps. "Well, I'm hanged!" said Gus, after he had picked himself up and tried the door. "We're locked in."
When Gus entered the punt-house, a bright idea struck Wilson. "Say, Rogers, remember Toddy locking us in the laboratory last term? Two hundred Virgil." "Ah!" said Rogers, catching the meaning of Wilson's remark instanter; "if we only could cork him up there for the afternoon! That would pay him out for Merishall's call-over lines." "We'll chance it," said Wilson.
"Oh, Worcester!" began Rogers, tremulously, "we've come to tell you that it was we who lost Biffen's the houser." "Why, Wilson didn't play, and you caught Cotton," said Dick, astonished. "But we locked the dervishes in the punt-house we thought there was only Todd inside." "Oh, you did, you little beggars, did you?" said Worcester, considering the doleful and grief-stricken Biffenites.
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