We must get--Hark! what's that ?" "I didn't hear anything." "Yes, there was a sort of a rapping sound.

Hush! there it is again." Jack heard it this time.

"It's some one knocking very gently against that door leading into Locker's Lane," he whispered.
They groped their way across the playground until they reached the wall.
There was no mistake about it--some one was gently tapping with his knuckles on the other side of the door.
"Who's there ?" asked Jack Vance.
"I want to speak to the young gen'leman who was locked up t'other day in the cow-shed," was the answer, given in a low voice which Diggory instantly recognized.
"I know him," he said; "it's Joe Crump.

Here, give me a leg up, and I'll talk to him over the wall .-- All right, Joe; I'm the chap." "Well, if you are," answered the voice, "you'll remember you offered me a bob if I could find out and tell you when somebody was going to do something." "Well, what's the news ?" "Give me the money first, and then I'll tell you." Jack Vance fortunately had the required coin in his pocket, and Diggory dropped it into Joe Crump's cap.
"Well, the news is this," said the latter, speaking in the same low tone--"that there Noaks and Hogson are coming up here to-night just afore nine o'clock, and they're a-going to drown your fireworks." "Drown our fireworks! why, what ever d'you mean?
How do they know we've got any fireworks?
and how can they get at them when they're all locked up ?" "I can't say," returned Crump, "so it's no use asking me.

I only knows that Noaks is a-going to do it; 'drown 'em all in a bucket of water,' was what he said.