te. Entering the back parlour,
the two masters quickly took down the names of full half the boys who,
in the suddenness of the surprise, had been unable to make their exit.

And Eric?

The instant that the candles were knocked over, he felt Wildney seize
his hand, and whisper, "This way; all serene;" following, he groped his
way in the dark to the end of the room, where Wildney, shoving aside a
green baize curtain, noiselessly opened a door, which at once led them
into a little garden. There they both crouched down under a lilac tree
beside the house, and listened intently.

There was no need for this precaution; their door remained unsuspected,
and in five minutes the coast was clear. Creeping into the house again,
they whistled, and Billy coming in, told them that the masters had gone,
and all was safe.

"Glad ye're not twigged, gen'lemen," he said; "but there'll be a pretty
sight of damage for all this glass and plates."

"Shut up with your glass and plates," said Wildney. "Here, Eric, we
must cut for it again."

It was the dusk of a winter evening when they got out from the close
room into the open-air, and they had to consider which way they would
choose to avoid discovery. They happened to choose the wrong, but
escaped by dint of hard running, and Wildney's old short cut. As they
ran they passed several boys (who, having been caught, were walking home
leisurely), and managed to get back undiscovered, when they both
answered their names quite innocently at the roll-call, immediately
after lock-up.

"What lucky dogs you are to get off," said many boys to them.

"Yes; it's precious lucky for me," said Wildney. "If I'd been caught at
this kind of thing a second time, I should have got something worse than
a swishing."

"Well it's all through you I escaped," said Eric, "you knowing little
scamp."

"I'm glad of it, Eric," said Wildney, in his fascinating way, "since it
was all through me you went. It's rather too hazardous though; we must
manage better another time."

During tea-time Eric was silent, as he felt pretty sure that none of the
sixth-form or other study-boys would particularly sympathise with his
late associates. Since the previous evening he had been cool with
Duncan, and the rest had long rather despised him as a boy who'd do
anything to be popular; so he sat there silent, looking as disdainful as
he could, and not touching the tea, for which he felt disinclined after
the recent pot