The Triple Alliance | Page 4

and old
Welsby is shut up in his library, the different rooms make raids on one
another. It began the term before last. Blake had been teaching us all
about how the Crusaders used to go out every now and then and make
war in Palestine, and so the fellows on the west side of the house called
themselves the Crusaders, and we were Infidels, and they'd come over
and rag us, and we should drive them back. Miss Eleanor came up one
night, and caught us in the middle of a battle. O Diggy, she is a trump!

Blake asked her next day before us all which boys had been out on the
landing, because he meant to punish them; and she laughed, and said:
'I'm sure I can't tell you. Why, when I saw they were all in their
night-shirts, I shut my eyes at once!' Of course it was all an excuse for
not giving us away. She doesn't mind seeing chaps in their night-shirts
when they're ill, we all know that; and once or twice when for some
reason or other she told us on the quiet that there mustn't be any
disturbance that evening, no one ever went crusading-- Acton would
have licked them if they had. Acton's going to propose to Miss Eleanor
some day, he told us so, and--"
"But what about the bedrooms?" interrupted Diggory; "have you given
up having crusades?"
"Yes, but we have other things instead. We call our rooms by different
names, and it's all against all; one lot come and make a raid on you, and
then you go and pay them out. This term Kennedy and Jacobs sleep in
the room above ours, and next to the big attic. They're always reading
sea stories, and they call their room the 'Main-top,' because it's so high
up. Then at the end of the passage are Acton, Shaw, and Morris, and
they're the 'House of Lords;' and next to them is the 'Dogs' Home,'
where all the other fellows are put."
A few hours later Diggory and his two room-mates were standing at the
foot of their beds and discussing the formation of a few simple rules for
conducting a race in undressing, the last man to put the candle out.
"You needn't bother to race," said Mugford; "I'll do it--I'm sure to be
the last."
"No, you aren't," answered Vance. "We'll give you coat and waistcoat
start; it'll be good fun--"
At this moment the door was suddenly flung open, two half-dressed
figures sprang into the room, and discharged a couple of snowballs
point-blank at its occupants. One of the missiles struck Diggory on the
shoulder, and the other struck Mugford fair and square on the side of
the head, the fragments flying all over the floor. There was a subdued

yell of triumph, the door was slammed to with a bang, and the muffled
sound of stockinged feet thudding up the neighbouring staircase
showed that the enemy were in full retreat.
"It's those confounded Main-top men!" cried Jack Vance; "I will pay
them out. I wonder where the fellows got the snow from?"
"Oh, I expect they opened the window and took it off the ledge,"
answered Diggory. "Look here--let's sweep it up into this piece of
paper before it melts."
This having been done, the three friends hastily threw off their clothes
and scrambled into bed, forgetting all about the proposed race in their
eagerness to form some plan for an immediate retaliation on the
occupants of the "Main-top."
"I wonder if they'll hear anything of the ghost again this term?" said
Mugford,
"What ghost?" asked Diggory.
"Oh, it's nothing really," answered Vance; "only somebody said once
that the house is haunted, and Kennedy and Jacobs say the ghost must
be in the big attic next their room. They hear such queer noises
sometimes that they both go under the bed-clothes."
"Do they always do that?"
"Yes, so they say, whenever there is a row."
"Well, then," said Diggory, "I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll go very
quietly up into that attic, and groan and knock on the wall until you
think they've both got their heads well under the clothes, and then we'll
rush in and bag their pillows, or drag them out of bed, or something of
that sort. You aren't afraid to go into the attic, are you?" he continued,
seeing that the others hesitated. "Why, of course there are no such
things as ghosts. Or, look here, I'll go in, and you can wait outside."

"N--no, I don't mind," answered Vance; "and it'll be an awful lark
catching them with their heads under the clothes."
"All right, then, let's do it; though I suppose we'd better wait till every
one's in bed."
The last