"Any time we can get away," he cried, brightening up. "I'm ready."

"All right," I said; "then we will go first chance."

"We must tell Bob Hopley we're going, or he may hear us in the wood, and pepper us, thinking it's old Magglin."

"What?"

"He said he would, if ever he caught him there."

"Seen him lately?" I said.

"No; have you?"

"Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley's."

"One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I'm sure he's had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn't owe him. I wish I wasn't so soft."

"So do I."

"Ah, now you're laughing at me. Never mind, I've done with him now.

Never a penny does he ever get out of me again."

"Till next time, Tom," I said.

"No, nor next time neither. I don't suppose we shall see much more of him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching, he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get him sent to prison, for he don't think prison's good for young men like him."

"I suppose it isn't," I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion, and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had put up from time to time.

And as I watched him, an idea entered my brain which tickled me so, that I had hard work to keep from laughing aloud, and being noticed.

The idea came as he glanced at me, and moved the rabbit to the corner nearest to him--the absurd-looking object being carefully covered over, as if he was afraid I should begin joking him again about its unfinished state.

All at once, moved by the impulse which had set me laughing, I leaned over and stretched out my hand toward the corner where he had placed the rabbit.

"What are you going to do?" he cried excitedly, and he caught my wrist.

"Only going to take out bunny, and see how he's getting on."

"No, no, don't."

"Why not?" I cried merrily.

"Because--because I don't want it touched."

"But I can improve it so."

"No, no: be quiet. Oh, I say, Frank, pray don't touch it."

"Oh, all right," I said, after a good-humoured struggle with him, in which I did not use much force, and I let him shut the bin, and sit on the lid.

Dinner!

For the bell began to ring, and I dashed down, to run out of the stable and across the yard, expecting that he would follow me, and running so blindly that I came right upon d.i.c.ksee, just leaving the stable door, and sent him down upon his hands and knees.

"Hallo!" I shouted; "what were you doing there?--listening?"

"What's that to you?" grumbled the boy, as he rose slowly and carefully, examining his hands to see if the skin was off. "You did that on purpose."

"No, I didn't," I replied; "but I would have done it, if I had known you were sneaking and eavesdropping there."

"Who was sneaking and eavesdropping? What was there to listen to?" he retorted. "'Tain't your stable. I've as good a right there as you have. Tom Mercer and you ain't going to have it all to yourselves for your old slugs and snails and dead cats."

"You mind Tom Mercer doesn't catch you," I said. "You don't want him to lick you again, I know."

"Yah!" he shouted, and he ran off just as my companion came down.

"Who was that?" he said.

"Fatty d.i.c.ksee. I told him you'd give him another dressing down if he came sneaking about here."

"And so I will," cried Tom. "He has never forgiven me, though, for the last. I know he hates me. So does Eely hate you."

"Let 'em," I said, as we went on.

"But they'll serve us out some day if they can."

"Dinner--dinner!" I cried. "Come on!" and we set off at a trot, for the prospect of hot roast mutton and potatoes just then was of far more consequence to me than my school-fellow's prophecies of evil.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

I thought of my little plan that night when I went to bed, and I had it in my mind when I woke next morning, and laughed over it merrily as I dressed.

It was the merest trifle, but it amused me; and I have often thought since of what big things grow sometimes out of the merest trifles.

School-days are often so monotonous that boys jump at little things for their entertainment, and as there was some good-humoured mischief in this which would do no one any harm, only create a laugh, in which Tom Mercer would no doubt join after he had got over the first feeling of vexation, I had no hesitation about putting it in force.

I had to wait for my opportunity, and it came that afternoon, when most of the boys were together cricketing and playing rounders. I glanced round the field, and then slipped away un.o.bserved, made my way round by the back, and crossed the open s.p.a.ce toward the yard.

It was absolutely necessary for me to meet no one, so as to avoid suspicion when Mercer found out what had been done, and I intended, as soon as I had executed my little plan, to slip back by the same way into the play-field, so as to be able to prove where I was on that afternoon.

But, as a matter of course, just because I did not wish to meet any one, I must meet the cook just returning from the kitchen garden with a bundle of thyme in her hand.

Everybody spoke of Cook as being disagreeable and ready to snap and snarl if she were asked for anything extra because a boy was sick; but they say, "Speak well of the bridge that carries you well over," and I always found her the most kindly of women; and she nodded and smiled.

"What boys you and Master Mercer are!" she said. "Why, you are always going and moping up in that loft instead of being in the fields at play."

She went on toward the house, and I stood hesitating about carrying out my plan.