have thought since, that I must have taken something at breakfast
that disagreed with me horribly, and that he somehow put it in my
tea.

"Then again in that matter of the Sculls at Henley. I never felt my
boat row so heavily as it did then. When it was taken out of the
water it was found that a piece of curved iron hoop was fixed to
the bottom by a nail that had been pushed through the thin skin. It
certainly was not there when it was on the rack, but it was there
when I rowed back to the boathouse, and it could only have got
there by being put on as the boat was being lowered into the water.
There were three or four men helping to lower her down--two of them
friends of mine, two of them fellows employed at the boathouse.
While it lay in the water, before I got in and took my place,
anyone stooping over it might unobserved have passed his hand under
it and have pushed the nail through.

"I never said anything about it. I had been beaten; there was no
use making a row and a scandal over it, especially as I had not a
shadow of proof against anyone; but I was certain that he was not
so fast as I was, for during practice my time had been as nearly as
possible the same as that of the man who beat him with the greatest
ease, and I am convinced that for once I should have got the better
of him had it not been for foul play."

"That was shameful, Captain Mallett," Bertha said, indignantly. "I
wonder you did not take some steps to expose him."

"I had nothing to go upon, Bertha. It was a case of suspicion only,
and you have no idea what a horrible row there would have been if I