inactivity they stood watching the long
hand of the clock creep up from six till twelve.

The first tea-bell had just finished ringing, when there was a sound of
footsteps hurrying along the passage, the door burst open, and in rushed
no other person than Diggory himself!

"Hullo! how did you get away?"--"What have they been doing?"--"How did
you escape?"

"Oh, such a lark!" cried the boy. "They'll wish they'd never caught me!
I'll tell you all about it after tea."

As soon as the meal was over, Diggory was seized, hurried up into the
schoolroom, and there forced to relate his adventures.

"Well," he began, "they collared me, and dragged me through the gates
and along into their playground. Noaks looked at me and said, 'Hullo,
here's luck! This is the young beggar who tied that rope to the
scrapers; I vote we give him a jolly good licking.' I told them that my
father was a lawyer, and if any of them touched me he'd take a summons
out against them for assault. That frightened Noaks, for you can see
he's a regular coward, so he asked the others what they thought had
better be done with me.

"'I know,' said Hogson. 'There's an old cow-shed in the field next to
ours; let's shut him in and keep him there till after tea. He'll get a
jolly row for being late when he gets back, and he won't dare to say
where he's been; because I know it's against their rules to come
anywhere near us, and Locker's Lane is out of bounds. If he does tell,
we'll swear he was in the road chucking stones at the windows.'

"Some one said there was only a staple on the door of the shed, but
Noaks said he'd fetch the padlock off his play-box, and so he did.

"Well, they took me across their playing field, and over the hedge into
the next, and shut me up in this beastly old hovel. 'It's no use your
making a row,' said Hogson, 'because no one'll hear you; and if you
do, summons or no summons we'll come down and give you a licking.'
After that they left me, and went back to the house; and as soon as
they'd gone, I began to try to find some way of escape, but it was so
dark inside the shed I couldn't see anything. Presently I heard a
knocking on the boards. There was a wide crack between them in one
place, and looking through it I could just make out that there was some
boy standing there with what looked like a dirty apron over his
trousers. I said, 'Hullo!' and he said, 'Hullo! what's up? who are you?
and what have they been a-sticki