a
sense of being somehow a person of rank, for whom doors were opened
grandly and who had vassals at his command. The watchful obedience of
fifty vassals embodied itself in the manner of Lazarus.

"I am glad," The Rat said once, reflectively, "that, after all my
father was once--different. It makes it easier to learn things
perhaps. If he had not talked to me about people who--well, who had
never seen places like Bone Court--this might have been harder for me
to understand."

When at last they managed to call The Squad together, and went to spend
a morning at the Barracks behind the churchyard, that body of armed men
stared at their commander in great and amazed uncertainty. They felt
that something had happened to him. They did not know what had
happened, but it was some experience which had made him mysteriously
different. He did not look like Marco, but in some extraordinary way
he seemed more akin to him. They only knew that some necessity in
Loristan's affairs had taken the two away from London and the Game.
Now they had come back, and they seemed older.

At first, The Squad felt awkward and shuffled its feet uncomfortably.
After the first greetings it did not know exactly what to say. It was
Marco who saved the situation.

"Drill us first," he said to The Rat, "then we can talk about the Game."

"'Tention!" shouted The Rat, magnificently. And then they forgot
everything else and sprang into line. After the drill was ended, and
they sat in a circle on the broken flags, the Game became more
resplendent than it had ever been.

"I've had time to read and work out new things," The Rat said. "Reading
is like traveling."

Marco himself sat and listened, enthralled by the adroitness of the
imagination he displayed. Without revealing a single dangerous fact he
built up, of their journeyings and experiences, a totally new structure
of adventures which would have fired the whole being of any group of
lads. It was safe to describe places and people, and he so described
them that The Squad squirmed in its delight at feeling itself marching
in a procession attending the Emperor in Vienna; standing in line
before palaces; climbing, with knapsacks strapped tight, up precipitous
mountain roads; defending mountain-fortresses; and storming Samavian
castles.

The Squad glowed and exulted. The Rat glowed and exulted himself.
Marco watched his sharp-featured, burning-eyed face with wonder and
admiration. This