Gordon if it was true. They looked at him curiously with an
expression in which surprise and admiration were curiously blended. The
old love of notoriety swept over Gordon once more; he felt frightfully
bucked with himself. What a devil of a fellow he was, to be sure. He
went round the studies in hall, proclaiming his audacity.

"I say, look here, old chap, you needn't tell anyone, but I am going out
to Pack Monday Fair; it will be some rag!"

The sensation he caused was highly gratifying. By prayers all his
friends and most of his acquaintances knew of it. Of course they would
keep it secret. But Gordon knew well that by break next day it would be
round the outhouses, and he looked forward to the number of questions he
would get asked. To be the hero of an impending escapade was pleasant.

"I say, Davenport," he said in his dormitory that evening, "I am going
out to the fair on Monday."

Davenport said nothing, and showed no sign of surprise. Gordon was
disappointed.

"Well, what do you think of it?" he said at last.

"That you are a sillier ass than I thought you were," said Davenport.

And as Gordon lay thinking over everything in the dark, he came to the
conclusion that Davenport was not so very far wrong after all.

* * * * *

Cold and nervous, Gordon waited for Rudd in the dark boot-hole under the
Chief's study on Pack Monday night just before twelve. In stockinged
feet he had crept downstairs, opened the creaking door without making
any appreciable noise, and then waited in the boot-room, which was
filled with the odour of blacking and damp decay. There was a small
window at the end of it, through which it was just possible to squeeze
out on to the Chief's front lawn. After that all was easy; anyone could
clamber over the wall by the V. A green.

There was the sound of feet on the stairs. It seemed to Gordon as if
they were bound to wake the whole house. Rudd's figure was framed black
in the doorway.

Silently they wormed their way through the window. The damp soil of a
flower bed was cold under their feet; with his hand Rudd smoothed out
the footprints.

They stole down the silent cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them.
The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless
among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up
coat collars and drew their caps over their eyes.

A minute later the glaring lights of the booths in Che