"

"All right," said Heathcote, looking at last as if he saw his way to the
venture.

And the two friends forthwith dived, and turned the plan over beneath
the waves.

When, punctually at ten o'clock, the six coaches paraded in the great
Quadrangle, no one noticed the absence of Dick and his henchman in the
crowd that assembled to watch the departure of the lucky seventy. Nor
when coach one had started with the Eleven, and coaches two, three, and
four had carried off the rest of the Sixth and Fifth, did any one
suspect that coach five had taken up two of its passengers already.

The Upper and Middle Fourth, who boarded this vehicle, had little idea,
as they pitched their coats and wraps inside and mounted themselves to
the top, that, like the birds who buried the babes in the wood beneath
the leaves, they were hiding the light of day from two innocents who lay
one under either seat, with their noses to the fresh air and their
hearts very decidedly in their mouths.

"Chock full up here," cried a voice from the top, which Dick, even in
his retirement, recognised as belonging to Duffield, the post fag, who,
by virtue of his office, was just out of the Den; "you kids will have to
go inside."

"Oh, I say, you might let us up," replied one of the "kids" in question,
in tones of expostulation; "we won't take up much room. It's so jolly
stuffy inside."

"So it is," inwardly ejaculated the two stowaways.

"Just the place for you. You can play oughts-and-crosses and enjoy
yourselves. There's not standing room up here," cried Duffield.

"Can't we stand on the step?"

"No; Hooker's bagged the bottom step, and I've bagged the one half up
this side as soon as we start."

The lurkers gasped. They had not reckoned on the steps being occupied
and their snug retreat raked by the eyes of the bumptious Hooker.

"Can we stand on them till you're ready, I say?" once more asked the
persevering Fourth-formers.

"Why can't you go inside? I say, though," added the post fag, "there's
room for two on the next coach. Hop up, or you'll be out of it!"

To the relief of our heroes, the youngsters yapped off on the new scent;
and they presently had the satisfaction of hearing their voices raised
in a halloo of triumph from the box of coach six.

"All right!" cried a master, as the last man squeezed up to his perch.

Then arose great cheers and counter-cheers, not unmixed with yells, as
the cavalcade drove off in style, follow