All denied it. When it came to Tom Scudamore's turn, he said. "You
never do believe me, Mr. Jones, so it is of no use my saying that I
didn't do it; but if you ask Miss Scudamore, she will bear witness
that we were in bed hours before, and that there are bars on our
windows through which a cat could hardly get."

The boys had never used Rhoda's room after the first night's
expedition, making their escape now by waiting until the house was
quiet, and then slipping along the passage to the spare room, and
thence by the window, returning in the same way.

Under this continued worry, annoyance, and alarm, the schoolmaster
grew thin and worn, his school fell off more and more; for many of
the boys, whose rest was disturbed by all this racket, encouraged by
the example of the boys of the place who had already been taken away,
wrote privately to their friends.

The result was that the parents of two or three more wrote to say
that their boys would not return after the holidays, and no one was
surprised when it became known that Mr. Jones was about to close his
school and leave the neighborhood.

The excitement of the pranks that they had been playing had enabled
the boys to support the almost perpetual scoldings and complaints of
their aunt; but school once over, and their enemy driven from the
place, they made up their minds that they could no longer stand it.

One day, therefore, when Rhoda had, as an extraordinary concession,
been allowed to go for a walk with them, they told her that they