________
Total 16 7

The cab of course might cost more, and he must take back the eightpence
out of it for himself. But Cyril would have at least one and sixpence
in his pocket when he arrived, which he could put in the offertory at
the Mass of thanksgiving for his escape that he would attend on the
following morning. Cyril would be useful to old Dorward, and he (Mark)
would give him some tips on serving if they had an empty compartment
from Slowbridge to Paddington. Mark's original intention had been to
wait at the corner of Cranborne Road in a closed cab like the proverbial
postchaise of elopements, but he discarded this idea for reasons of
economy. He hoped that Cyril would not get frightened on the way to the
station and turn back. Perhaps after all it would be wiser to order a
cab and give up the ginger-beer, or pay for the ginger-beer with the
money for the telegram. Once inside a cab Cyril was bound to go on.
Hacking might be committed more completely to the enterprise by waiting
inside until he arrived with Cyril. It was a pity that Cyril was not
locked in his room, and yet when it came to it he would probably have
funked letting himself down from the window by knotted sheets. Mark
walked home with Hacking after school, to give his final instructions
for the following day.

"I'm telling you now," he said, "because we oughtn't to be seen together
at all to-morrow, in case of arousing suspicion. You must get hold of
Pomeroy and tell him to run to the corner of the road at half-past-five,
and jump straight into the fly that'll be waiting there with you
inside."

"But where will you be?"

"I shall be waiting outside the ticket barrier with the tickets."

"Supposing he won't?"

"I'll risk seeing him once more. Go and ask if you can speak to him a
minute, and tell him to come out in the garden presently. Say you've
knocked a ball over or something and will Master Cyril throw it back. I
say, we might really put a message inside a ball and throw it over. That
was the way the Duc de Beaufort escaped in _Twenty Years After_."

Hacking looked blankly at Mark.

"But it's dark and wet," he objected. "I shouldn't knock a ball over on
a wet evening like this."

"Well, the skivvy won't think of that, and Pomeroy will guess that
we're trying to communicate with him."

Mark thought how odd it was that Hacking should be so utterly blind to
the romance of the enter