pavement, and always with an eye wide open for any
adventure. As to the kind of adventure, they are not particular so long
as it promises excitement. Sometimes they go through their whole school
career without accident. More often they run up against a snag in the
shape of some serious-minded and muscular person, who objects to having
his toes trodden on and being shoved off the pavement, and then they
usually sober down, to the mutual advantage of themselves and the rest
of the community.

One's opinion of this type of youth varies according to one's point of
view. Small boys whom they had occasion to kick, either from pure high
spirits or as a punishment for some slip from the narrow path which the
ideal small boy should tread, regarded Stone and Robinson as bullies of
the genuine "Eric" and "St. Winifred's" brand. Masters were rather
afraid of them. Adair had a smouldering dislike for them. They were
useful at cricket, but apt not to take Sedleigh as seriously as he could
have wished.

As for Mike, he now found them pleasant company, and began to get out
the tea things.

"Those Fire Brigade meetings," said Stone, "are a rag. You can do what
you like, and you never get more than a hundred lines."

"Don't you!" said Mike. "I got Saturday afternoon."

"What!"

"Is Wilson in too?"

"No. He got a hundred lines."

Stone and Robinson were quite concerned.

"What a beastly swindle!"

"That's because you don't play cricket. Old Downing lets you do what you
like if you join the Fire Brigade and play cricket."

"'We are, above all, a keen school,'" quoted Stone. "Don't you ever
play?"

"I have played a bit," said Mike.

"Well, why don't you have a shot? We aren't such flyers here. If you
know one end of a bat from the other, you could get into some sort of a
team. Were you at school anywhere before you came here?"

"I was at Wrykyn."

"Why on earth did you leave?" asked Stone. "Were you sacked?"

"No. My father took me away."

"Wrykyn?" said Robinson. "Are you any relation of the Jacksons
there--J.W. and the others?"

"Brother."

"What!"

"Well, didn't you play at all there?"

"Yes," said Mike, "I did. I was in the team three years, and I should
have been captain this year, if I'd stopped on."

There was a profound and gratifying sensation. Stone gaped, and Robinson
nearly dropped his teacup.

Stone broke the silence.

"But I mean to say--look here? What I mean is, why aren't you playing?
Why