"After breakfast Moriarty came to me with a paper, and showed me what
they had been saying about the Irish. There was a letter from the man
Briggs on the subject. 'A very sensible and temperate letter from Sir
Eustace Briggs', they called it, but bedad! if that was a temperate
letter, I should like to know what an intemperate one is. Well, we read
it through, and Moriarty said to me, 'Can we let this stay as it is?'
And I said, 'No. We can't.' 'Well,' said Moriarty to me, 'what are we
to do about it? I should like to tar and feather the man,' he said. 'We
can't do that,' I said, 'but why not tar and feather his statue?' I
said. So we thought we would. Ye know where the statue is, I suppose?
It's in the recreation ground just across the river."

"I know the place," said Clowes. "Go on. This is ripping. I always knew
you were pretty mad, but this sounds as if it were going to beat all
previous records."

"Have ye seen the baths this term," continued O'Hara, "since they
shifted Dexter's house into them? The beds are in two long rows along
each wall. Moriarty's and mine are the last two at the end farthest
from the door."

"Just under the gallery," said Trevor. "I see."

"That's it. Well, at half-past ten sharp every night Dexter sees that
we're all in, locks the door, and goes off to sleep at the Old Man's,
and we don't see him again till breakfast. He turns the gas off from
outside. At half-past seven the next morning, Smith"--Smith was one of
the school porters--"unlocks the door and calls us, and we go over to
the Hall to breakfast."