When the performance was over, Bram emerged from his circumgyration of the illustrated world feeling that something must be done about Brigham. After the sequins and ribbons and cobalt seas, after bullfights and earthquakes, juggernauts, pagodas, and palms, Brigham in the wind and wet of a Saturday night in March was not to be endured without some kind of protest. To go meekly back to Lebanon House and a long jobation from his father on the sin of attending a public performance in which female dancers actively participated was unimaginable in this elated mood. If there had to be a row, why couldn’t there be a row over something that really deserved it?
“My gosh, Jack, I’m just itching to do something,” he confided to his chum. “Don’t you wish we had wings and could fly right away to the other end of the world now?”
“What’s the use of wishing for wings?” objected young Fleming, who had enjoyed the entertainment, but was not prepared to be mentally extravagant in its honour.
“Well, of course I don’t mean real wings,” Bram explained. “Only, I simply can’t stick Brigham much longer. I couldn’t stick it even if I left school.”
They were passing Bethesda as Bram was speaking, and the sight of its hideousness looming up in the empty wet gaslit street revolted the boy.
“I wish I could burn that down,” he exclaimed savagely.
“Well, you can’t do that either,” said his friend. “So what’s the good of wishing?”
“I say, Jack, there’s a window open! I believe I could climb in,” declared Bram in sudden excitement.
Jack Fleming was not one of the Peculiar Children of God, nor had he any clear notion how severe a penalty was entailed by sacrilege; but the idea of climbing into any place of worship by night—church, chapel, or meeting-house—filled him with superstitious dread, besides alarming him in its legal aspect.
“Don’t be a mad ass,” he adjured his friend. “What would you do if you did climb in?”