Jeremy, on his return to Thompson’s that term, found that he had been changed to what was known as the Baby Dorm.

Hitherto he had been in a perfect barrack of a dormitory that contained at least twenty beds. The Baby Dorm was a little room with three beds, and it was a distinction to be there—a true sign that you were rising in the world. This was fully appreciated by Jeremy, and when he also discovered that his two companions were Pug Raikes and Stokesley Maj the cup of his joy was full. Raikes and Stokesley were just the companions he would have chosen, short, of course, of Riley. But Riley was away in the other wing of the house protecting, to his infinite boredom, some new kids. There was no hope of his company.

Raikes and Stokesley were both older than Jeremy; they had been at Thompson’s a year longer than he. Pug Raikes was a fat, round boy, rather like Tommy Winchester at home. It was said that he could eat more at one go than any three boys at Thompson’s put together. But with all his fat he was no mean sportsman. He was the best fives player in the school, and quite a good bat. He had an invaluable character for games; nothing disturbed him; he was imperturbable through every crisis. He had been bitten once in the hand by a ferret, and had not uttered a sound.

Stokesley was opposite from Raikes in every way except that he was a good cricketer, and perhaps it was this very attraction of their opposites that brought them together. They had been quite inseparable ever since their first suffering from tossing in the same blanket on the first night of their arrival at Thompson’s, two and a half years ago. Stokesley was a very good-looking boy, thin and tall, straight and strong, with black eyes, black hair and thick eyebrows. He was known as “Eyebrows” among his friends. He was as excitable as Raikes was apparently phlegmatic. He was always up to some new “plot” or fantasy, always in hot water, always extricating himself from the same with the airs of a Spanish grandee. It was rumoured that Thompson was afraid of his father, who was a baronet. Thirty years ago baronets counted.

Jeremy would never have been admitted into their friendship had it not been for his football. They considered him “a plucky little devil,” and prophesied that he would go far. They were a little condescending, of course, and the first night Stokesley addressed him thus:

“Look here, young Stocky, it’s jolly lucky for you being in with us. None of your cheek, and if you snore you know what you’ll get. You don’t walk in your sleep, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Jeremy.

“Well, if you do, you’ll have the surprise of your life. Won’t he, Pug?”

“Rather,” said Raikes.

“And remember you’re playing footer this term for the honour of this dorm. If you play badly you’ll get it like anything in here afterwards.”

However, in a night or two there was very little to choose between them. Boys are extraordinarily susceptible to atmosphere. During the cricket term young Cole had been of no account at all; quite a decent kid, but no use at cricket. But before the autumn term was a week old he was spoken of as the probable scrum half that year, kid though he was. Stokesley was in the first fifteen as a forward, but his place was a little uncertain, and Pug Raikes was nowhere near the first fifteen at all and cared nothing for football.

It happened, therefore, that Jeremy was soon taken into the confidences of the two older boys, and very exciting confidences they were. Stokesley was never happy unless he had some new scheme on foot. Some of them were merely silly and commonplace, like dressing up as ghosts and frightening the boys in the Lower Dorm or putting white mice in the French master’s desk; but he had at times impulses of real genius, like the Pirates’ Society, of which there is no space here to tell, or the Cribbers’ Kitchen, a rollicking affair that gave Thompson the fits for a whole week.

Jeremy managed to keep himself out of most of these adventures. He had the gift of concentrating utterly on the matter in hand, and the matter in hand this term was getting into the first fifteen. He went in most conscientiously for training, running round Big Field before First Hour, refusing various foods that he longed to enjoy, and refusing to smoke blotting paper on Sunday afternoon in Parker’s Wood. People jeered at him for all this seriousness, and, had he made a public business of his sporting conscience, he might have earned a good deal of unpopularity. But he said very little about it and behaved in every way like an ordinary mortal.

Luckily for him, his school work that term was easy. He had been for two terms in the Lower Fourth, and now was near the top of it, and inevitably at the end of this term would be moved out of it. Malcolm, his form master, liked him, being himself a footballer of no mean size. It was not, therefore, until the end of the first fortnight that Jeremy discovered that something very serious was going forward between his two dormitory companions, something in which he was not asked to share. They whispered together continually, and the whispering took the form of Stokesley persuading Pug over and over again. “Oh, come on, Pug. Don’t spoil sport.” “You’re afraid—yes, you are. You’re a funk.” “I can’t do it without you. Of course I can’t.” “We’ll never have a chance again.”

At last Jeremy, who had more than his natural share of curiosity, could endure it no longer. He sat on the edge of his bed, kicking his naked toes, and cried:

“I say, you two, what’s all this about? You might let me in.”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Stocky. You go to sleep.”

“You’d much better tell me. You know I never sneak.”

“This is too important to let a kid like you know about it.”

“I’m not such a kid, if it comes to that. Perhaps I can help?”

“No, you can’t. You shut your mouth and go to sleep.”

Two nights later than this, however, Jeremy was told.

“I’m going to tell Stocky,” said Raikes, “and see what he says.”

“Oh, all right,” said Stokesley, in the sulks. “I don’t care what you do.”

Jeremy sat up in his bed and listened. The whispering voices stole on and on, one voice supplementing the other. Soon Stokesley overbore the other and was dominant. Jeremy distrusted his ears. Beyond the window the night was lovely, a clean sweep of dark velvet sky, with two tree-tops and a single star, so quiet, not a sound anywhere; and this adventure was the most audacious conceived of by man. Neither more nor less than to run away to sea, to anywhere; but, before finally vanishing, to have a week, a fortnight, a month in London at the very finest hotels, with heaps to eat and drink and theatres every night.

“You see,” explained Stokesley eagerly, warmed up now by the narration of his idea, “we’re sick of this place. It’s so dull. You must feel that yourself, Stocky, even with your beastly football. Nothing ever happens, and it’s ages before we go to Rugby. You’d much better come too. Of course, you’re a bit young, but they’ll probably want a cabin-boy on the ship; and then we’ll be in the South Seas, where you bathe all the time, and can shy at cokernuts, and there are heaps and heaps of monkeys, and you shoot tigers, and——”

He paused for breath.

A cabin-boy! Had it not been one of his earliest dreams? His mind flew back to that day, now so long ago, when he had begged the sea captain to take him. The sea captain! His heart beat thickly. Then came the practical side of him.

“But won’t you want an awful lot of money?” he asked.

“Oh, we’ve thought of that, of course,” said Stokesley. “My father gave me five pounds to come back with, and Pug’s uncle gave him two and his aunt gave him another and his cousin gave him ten and six, and I’ve got my gold watch and chain, which will mean a tenner at least, and Pug’s got his gold pin that his dead uncle left him. Altogether, it will be about fifteen pounds anyway, and it’ll cost us about a pound a day in London, and then we’ll go to Southampton and go to a boat and say we want to work our way, and of course they’ll let us. Pug and I are awfully strong, and you—you carry the plates and things.”

London! It was the first time in all his life that that place had been brought within his reach. Of course, he had heard the grown-ups mention it, but always as something mysterious, far-away, magical. London! He had never conceived that he himself would one day set foot in it. How his world was extending! First, simply the house, then Polchester, then Rafiel and Caerlyon, then Thompson’s, then Craxton, and now London!

Nevertheless, he was still practical.

“How will you get to the station?” he asked.

“Oh, we’ve thought all about it. It will be a Sunday—probably next Sunday. We’re allowed off all the afternoon, and there’s a train at Saroby Junction that goes to London at four o’clock. We’ll be in London by seven.”

“If they catch you,” said Jeremy slowly, “there’ll be the most awful row.”

“Of course,” said Stokesley contemptuously. “But they won’t. How can they? We’ll be in London by call-over; and we’ll move to different hotels, and as soon as we think they’re on to us we’ll be off to Southampton. There are boats go every day.”

It was plain that Raikes was caught more and more deeply as Stokesley developed the plan. Jeremy himself felt to the full the wonderful adventure of it. The trouble was that now, at once, as soon as you had heard of it, the school looked dull and stupid. It had been all right as he came up to bed. He had been contented and happy, but now a longing for freedom surged through him, and for a moment he would like to climb through that window and run and run and run....

But the football saved him. If he went on this adventure he would never be half-back for the school; he would never be half-back for any school. He would in all probability never play football again. They did not play football in the South Seas. It was too hot. What was bathing compared with football?

“I don’t think I’ll come,” he said slowly. “I’d only be in your way.”

“Of course, if you funk it——” said Stokesley hotly.

“I don’t funk it. But——”

There was a knock on the door, and one of the junior masters walked in.

“That’s enough talking, you kids,” he said. “If there’s another word, you’ll hear of it.”

They lay then like images.