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THE BENEVOLENCE FADED OUT OF HIS PORTLY FACE AT THE SIGHT OF A GREYFRIARS JUNIOR SITTING AGAINST THE ROCK SMOKING A CIGARETTE BILLY BUNTER’S DOUBLE By FRANK RICHARDS Illustrated by R.J. MACDONALD CASSELL AND COMPANY LTD LONDON CONTENTS CHAP. 1 LETTER FOR BUNTER 2 THE ARTFUL DODGER 3 UP-ENDED! 4 BUNTER'S ALIBI 5 THE POOR RELATION 6 PREP IN No. 7 7 UNLUCKY BUNTER! 8 RECKLESS BUNTER! 9 THE BIG IDEA 10 CHANGE OF IDENTITY! 11 BUNTER? 12 A SURPRISE FOR QUELCH! 13 SPOT OF BOTHER 14 ONE FOR HIS NOB! 15 THE BOUNDER MEANS BUSINESS 16 CAUGHT! 17 SMITHY MEETS HIS MATCH 18 BOTH BUNTERS! 19 TWO OF THEM 20 CORNERED! 21 COKER TO THE RESCUE 22 AMAZING! 23 PROBLEM FOR PROUT 24 BUNTER THE BATSMAN! 25 TEA FOR TWO 26 BUNTER OF COURSE! 27 BUMPS FOR BUNTER 28 SMITHY MAKES A DISCOVERY 29 NOT POPULAR 30 BEASTLY FOR BUNTER 31 UNEXPECTED! 32 AFTER ALL 33 KEEPING IT DARK! CHAPTER 1 LETTER FOR BUNTER "ONE for you, Bunter!" called out Bob Cherry. "Oh!" Billy Bunter's fat face brightened. It had been clouded. It had been, in fact, lugubrious. The morning was bright and sunny. But the summer sunshine was not reflected in Billy Bunter's plump countenance. Most Remove fellows looked cheery when they came out of the form-room in break. Billy Bunter was an exception. His little round eyes blinked dismally behind his big spectacles. Bunter was not enjoying life that day. Generally, the Owl of the Remove found life at Greyfriars School a tolerable proposition. As a rule, his fat face was contented. But circumstances alter cases: and just now they were unpropitious. Billy Bunter had manners and customs of his own, which sometimes landed him in a spot of bother. On this particular morning, Bunter's whole horizon seemed to be spotted with bother. Quelch had been a beast in the form-room. Bunter had been put on "con". As he had been too busy the previous evening sitting in an armchair to find time for prep, he had handed out a series of howlers, which had made the Remove chuckle, but unfortunately had not produced the same effect on the Remove master. Quelch had been quite shirty about it: and Bunter had a translation to do, which was likely to occupy his leisure hours for some time to come. But that was not all. It was far from all. Coker of the Fifth was making a fuss about a bag of apples missing from his study. Bunter had been almost unwilling to leave the form- room, in dread of glimpsing the burly form and rugged features of Horace Coker. Then there was a spot of trouble with Tubb, of the Third Form. Tubb of the Third was merely a fag: any Remove man but Bunter would have smacked Tubb's head, and thought nothing of it. But Bunter did not want to contact Tubb: having a well-grounded apprehension that, in case of an encounter, it was not Tubb's head that would be smacked. Even that was not all, Bunter had little doubt that when Smithy went up to No. 4 Study, he would want to know what had become of a box of chocs he had left there. It was only too likely that the Bounder, whose temper was not very amiable, would be a beast about it. It would be just like him to suspect that Bunter had snooped those chocs: especially as Bunter had! All these accumulated spots of bother worried Bunter. In fact, that sunny morning, it really seemed that troubles were piling on Billy Bunter's fat shoulders, like Pelion piled on Ossa, and on Pelion Olympus! So preoccupied was the fat Owl that for once he neglected to turn his big spectacles on the letter-rack, to ascertain whether a postal order, which he had been long expecting, might have arrived at last. Harry Wharton and Co. gathered round the rack to look for letters. They were in luck. There was a letter for Hurree Jamset Ram Singh with an exotic postmark. There was one from nearer home for Frank Nugent, with a ten-shilling note in it. There was one for Johnny Bull with a whole pound note! Which looked like a festive time for the Famous Five: for when one member of that cheery company was in funds, all the members could count on a well-spread board at tea in the study. And there was one for W. G. Bunter: and Bob Cherry, spotting it, shouted to the fat Owl as he was rolling disconsolately on. Billy Bunter, with a brightening fat face, revolved on his axis. and rolled up to the group at the letter-rack. Often and often had Bunter been disappointed about a postal order. But hope springs eternal in the human breast. For the moment he forgot Quelch and Latin translations, Coker of the Fifth and Tub of the Third, and Smithy and his chocs. If there was a letter for Bunter, it was possible, if not probable, that his celebrated postal order had materialised at long last. "I say. you fellows, shove it this way!" exclaimed Bunter, eagerly, and Bob Cherry obligingly hooked the letter out of the rack and "shoved" it that way. Billy Bunter grabbed it with fat hands, and glued his eyes and spectacles on the superscription. Then he gave a snort. That letter was addressed to W. G. Bunter, but not in the paternal hand, and not in an avuncular hand. It was not from the old folks at home who had remembered that schoolboys at school often ran out of cash. It was addressed in a rather boyish hand, which caused Billy Bunter's hope of a remittance to fade out on the spot. There was no comfort in that letter, for a fat and worried Owl. "That ass!" grunted Bunter. "I thought it might be from the pater, or my uncle Carter, or one of my titled relations, you know-." "If any!" murmured Bob. "But it's only from that ass Wally!" said Bunter, and he crumpled the letter in a fat paw, to shove into a pocket: apparently not in the least interested in an epistle from that ass Wally, whosoever that ass Wally might be. "Aren't you going to read your letter?" asked Bob. "It's only from my cousin Waiter," grunted Bunter. "Nothing in it. Shouldn't wonder if it's to ask me about that five bob." "Eh? What five bob?" "He lent me five bob in the hols. I'd forgotten all about it of course - a chap can't be expected to remember trifles like that. Chap in an office, like Wally, would, I daresay," added Bunter, sarcastically. "Sort of thing he would remember." At which the Famous Five smiled. It seemed to them probable that the fellow who had lent the five "bob" might remember it longer than the fellow who had borrowed it, if the latter was named William George Bunter. Bunter shoved the crumpled letter into his pocket. Evidently he was not anxious to read what Cousin Wally had to say, no doubt preferring to go on forgetting such a trifle as a small loan in the "hols". But Harry Wharton and Co. as it happened, were interested, if Billy Bunter was not. They remembered that Bunter had a cousin named Walter, who was remarkably like the fat Owl in looks, but remarkably unlike him in every other respect. "Is that the cousin who came here once?" asked Harry. "That's him!" grunted Bunter, ungraciously and ungrammatically. "Chap just like you to look at, except that he washed?" said Bob. "Oh, really, Cherry-." "Not a bad chap, I remember." said Frank Nugent. "How's he getting on, Bunter?" "Eh? How should I know?" grunted Bunter. "We don't have much to do with that branch of the family. They're our poor relations, really. I believe he's some sort of a junior clerk in an office, or something, somewhere. Blessed if I know, or care either. And he's not so jolly much like me to look at, either. You can't call him good looking!" "Oh, my hat!" "The good-lookfulness of the esteemed Bunter is terrific!" remarked Hurree Jamset Ram Singh, solemnly. "Well, I don't brag of it," said Bunter, "it just happens. Fellows are jealous of me, as I know jolly well: but it's not my fault that I'm the best looking chap in the Remove." "Oh, suffering cats and crocodiles!" gasped Bob Cherry. "No, old fat man-you've got lots of faults, but that's certainly not one of them." "Ha, ha, ha!" "Blessed if I see anything to cackle at. I say, you fellows, I was expecting a postal order, and there's nothing but this silly letter from Wally. If you fellows have had a tip from home-." "Time we got out," said Bob Cherry. "Get a move on." "I say, you fellows, don't walk away while a chap's talking to you!" hooted Bunter. But the Famous Five did walk away. They seemed to lose their interest in Billy Bunter's conversation all of a sudden: and they disappeared down the corridor laughing. "Beasts!" grunted Bunter. He cast a morose blink after the Famous Five as they vanished. Then he cast another blink, a startled one, round him, as there was a heavy footstep in the offing, and an exclamation in a loud voice. "Oh, here you are! Now what about my apples-?" Billy Bunter gave one blink at a burly form and a rugged face.

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