Bunter Out of Bounds

If Billy Bunter had not missed his tea because Mr. Quelch caught him eating in class and given him detention, hunger would never have emboldened him to remove the confiscated cake from the Remove-master's study. Unfortunately, other people had business in Quelch's study, and one of them had the temerity to up-end that redoubtable figure.

Suspicion naturally fell upon Bunter, but all would have been well, for Quelch was too just to punish where any doubt remained, had not the notoriety gone to Bunter's head.

Unable to resist the role public opinion awarded him he began to boast of his courage as an up-ender of beaks. But retribution, in the shape of Quelch, lurked behind an elm in the quad. Condemned out of his own mouth, the Owl of the Remove is sentenced to a flogging, but when the whole school is assembled to witness his disgrace, Bunter proves to be missing.

Needless to say, Harry Wharton and Co. nail their colours to Bunter's mast and join him in frantic efforts to track down the real culprit before the fat boy's refuge is discovered.