That night they were restored to their fellow-citizens. They were sitting on their beds in the Baby Dorm examining their wounds. Raikes could think of nothing but that he had cried. Stokesley consoled him. As a last word he said to Jeremy: “Very decent of you, Stocky, not to give us away. We won’t forget it, will we, Pug?”

“No, we won’t,” said Pug, a naked, writhing figure, because he was trying to see his stripes.

“All the same,” said Stokesley, “it was smart of you not to come. It was rotten; all of it. They were beastly to us at the hotel, and just took our money. We went to a rotten theatre; and it rained all the time, didn’t it, Pug?”

“Beastly,” said Raikes.

The room was silent. So that was the end of the adventure. Jeremy, slipping off to sleep, suddenly loved the school, didn’t want to leave it—no, never. Saw the rooms, one by one, the class-room, the dining-room, Big Hall—Thompson, the matron, Crockett. All warm and safe and cosy.

And London. Swimming in rain, chasing you, hating you, catching you up at the last with a birch.

Good old school—the end of that adventure....