.

"What is this rubbish?" he said. "The Apache Chief! Is this what you
read instead of studying your Roman History? Let me not find any more
of this wretched stuff in this college. The man who wrote it, I suppose,
was some wretched fellow who writes these things for a drink. I'm
surprised at boys like you, educated, reading such stuff. I could
understand it if you were... National School boys. Now, Dillon, I advise
you strongly, get at your work or..."

This rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the glory of
the Wild West for me and the confused puffy face of Leo Dillon awakened
one of my consciences. But when the restraining influence of the school
was at a distance I began to hunger again for wild sensations, for the
escape which those chronicles of disorder alone seemed to offer me. The
mimic warfare of the evening became at last as wearisome to me as the
routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to
happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to
people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

The summer holidays were near at hand when I made up my mind to break
out of the weariness of school-life for one day at least. With Leo Dillon
and a boy named Mahony I planned a day's miching. Each of us saved up
sixpence. We were to meet at ten in the morning on the Canal Bridge.
Mahony's big sister was to write an excuse for him and Leo Dillon was to
tell his brother to say he was sick. We arranged to go along the Wharf
Road until we came to the ships, then to cross in the ferryboat and walk
out to see the Pigeon House. Leo Dillon was afraid we might meet Father
Butler or someone out of the college; but Mahony asked, very sensibly,
what would Father Butler be doing out at the Pigeon House. We were
reassured: and I brought the first stage of the plot to an end by
collecting sixpence from the other two, at the same time showing them
my own sixpence. When we were making the last arrangements on the eve we
were all vaguely excited. We shook hands, laughing, and Mahony said:

"Till tomorrow, mates!"

That night I slept badly. In the morning I was firstcomer to the bridge
as I lived nearest. I hid my books in the long grass near the ashpit at
the end of the garden where nobody ever came and hurried along the canal
bank. It was a mild sunny morning in the first week of June. I sat up
on the coping of the bridge admiring my frail canvas shoes which I had
dili