kness outside, and the faint notes of a piano, which filtered
through the double doors from one of the rooms, where a boy was
practising Haydn's "Surprise," from Hamilton's exercise book, a surprise
which he rendered as a mildly interjectional form of astonishment.

All the time Paul was racked with an intense burning desire to get up
and run for it then, before it became too late; but cold fits of doubt
and fear preserved him from such lunacy--he would wait, his chance might
come before long.

His patience was rewarded; the Doctor came in, looking at his watch, and
said, "I think these boys have had enough of it, Mr. Tinkler, eh? You
can send them out now till tea-time."

Mr. Tinkler, who had been entangling himself frightfully in intricate
calculations upon the blackboard, without making a single convert, was
only too glad to take advantage of the suggestion, and Paul followed the
rest into the playground with a sense of relief.

The usual "chevy" was going on there, with more spirit than usual,
perhaps, because the darkness allowed of practical jokes and surprises,
and offered great facilities for paying off old grudges with secrecy and
despatch, and as the Doctor had come to the door of the greenhouse, and
was looking on, the players exerted themselves still more, till the
"prison" to which most of one side had been consigned by being run down
and touched by their fleeter enemies was filled with a long line of
captives holding hands and calling out to be released.

Paul, who had run out vaguely from his base, was promptly pursued and
made prisoner by an unnecessarily vigorous thump in the back, after
which he took his place at the bottom of the line of imprisoned ones.

But the enemy's spirit began to slacken; one after another of the
players still left to the opposite side succeeded in outrunning pursuit
and touching the foremost prisoner for the time being, so as to set him
free by the rules of the game. The Doctor went in again, and the enemy
relapsed as usual into total indifference, so that Paul, without exactly
knowing how, soon found himself the only one left in gaol, unnoticed and
apparently forgotten.

He could not see anything through the darkness, but he heard the voices
of the boys disputing at the other side of the playground; he looked
round; at his right was the indistinct form of a large laurel bush,
behind that he knew was the playground gate. Could it be that his chance
had come at last?