"Their name is Scudamore."

"By Jove, they were in the same house with me. Uncommonly sharp little
fellows, and up to no end of mischief. It was always believed, though
no one could prove it, that they were the boys who nearly suffocated
the bargee."

There was a roar of laughter.

"Tell us all about, Carruthers."

"Well, there was not very much known about it. It seems the fellow
purposely upset a boat with four or five of our fellows in it, and
that night a dozen lighted crackers were thrown down into the little
cabin where the fellow was asleep; the hatch was fastened and he
was sent drifting down stream with the crackers exploding all about
him. The smoke nearly suffocated the fellow, I believe There was a
tremendous row about it, but they could not bring it home to any one.
We always put it down to the Scudamores, though they never would own
to it; but they were the only fellows in the boat who would have done
it, and they were always up to mischief."

"But what makes them come here as buglers?" the major asked.

"Their father was a banker, I believe, down in the Eastern Counties
somewhere. He died suddenly in the middle of the half before I left,
and they went away to the funeral and never came back again."

"The fact is," Captain Manley said, "I fancy by what they say, though
they did not mention their father was a banker, that he lost all his