s raised to this disposal of their game.

Bob Repton slept but little that night. They went to bed at eight,
and he heard every hour strike after nine; dozing off occasionally,
and waking up, each time, convinced that the clock would strike
three next time. At last he heard the three welcome strokes, and at
once got up and went to the beds of the other three boys.

They were all sound asleep, and required some shaking before they
could be convinced that it was time to get up. Then each boy put
his bolster in his bed, rolled up his night shirt into a ball and
laid it on the pillow, and then partly covered it up with the
clothes. Then they slipped on their shirts, breeches, and stockings
and, taking their jackets and shoes in their hand, stole out of the
door at their end of the room, and closed it behind them. They then
crept downstairs to the room where their caps were kept, put on
these and their jackets, and each boy got a hockey stick out of the
cupboard in the corner in which they were kept. Then they very
cautiously unfastened the shutter, raised the window, and slipped
out. They pulled the shutter to behind them, closed the window, and
then put on their shoes.

"That is managed first rate," Bob said. "There wasn't the least
noise. I made sure Wharton would have dropped his shoes."

"Why should I drop them, more than anyone else?" Wharton asked in
an aggrieved voice.

"I don't know, Billy. The idea occurred to me. I didn't think
anyone else would do it, but I quite made up my mind that you
would."

"Well, I wish you wouldn't be so fast about making up your mind,
then," Wharton grumbled. "I ain't more clumsy than other people."

"You are all right," Jim Sankey put in. "Bob's only joking."

"Well, he might as well joke with somebody else, Jim. I don't see
any joke in it."

"No, that is where the joke is, Billy," Bob said. "If you did see
the joke, there wouldn't be any joke in it.

"Well, never mind, here is the walnut tree. Now, who will get over
first?"

The walnut tree stood in the playground near the wall, and had
often proved useful as a ladder to boys at Tulloch's. One of its
branches extended over the wall and, from this, it was easy to drop
down beyond it. The return was more difficult, and was only to be
accomplished by means of an old ivy, which grew against the wall at
some distance off. By its aid the wall could be scaled without much
difficulty, and there was then the choice of dropping tw