I don't fancy they'd stick at a trifle, the cads!" "If Gilks had been in the boat," said another, "I could have believed it of him, but he was as anxious for us to win as we were ourselves." "No wonder; he and his friend Silk have been betting right and left on us, I hear." "Well, I suppose there's bound to be a new race," said Strutter.
"I don't know," replied Wibberly.

"I'd be just as well pleased if Bloomfield refused.

The vile cheats!" Bloomfield, be it said to his credit, was no party to these reckless accusations.

Mortified as he was beyond description, and disappointed by the collapse of his ambition, he yet scouted the idea of any one of his five rivals being guilty of so dirty a trick as the cutting of his boat's rudder-line.

At the same time he was as convinced as any one that foul play had been at the bottom of the accident, and the perpetrator of the mean act was undoubtedly a schoolhouse boy.