"That's your garden at the back, isn't it?"
Hacking admitted that it was.
"It looks rather decent."
Hacking allowed modestly that it wasn't bad.
"My father's rather dead nuts on gardening. So's my kiddy sister," he added.
"I vote we go out there," Mark suggested.
"Shall I give a yell to my kiddy sister?" asked Pandarus.
"Good lord, no," Mark exclaimed. "Don't the Pomeroys live next door to you? Look here, Hacking, I want to speak to Cyril Pomeroy."
"He was absent this morning."
Mark considered Hacking as a possible adjutant to the enterprise he was plotting. That he finally decided to admit Hacking to his confidence was due less to the favourable result of the scrutiny than to the fact that unless he confided in Hacking he would find it difficult to communicate with Cyril and impossible to manage his escape. Mark aimed as high as this. His first impulse had been to approach the Vicar of Meade Cantorum, but on second thoughts he had rejected him in favour of Mr. Dorward, who was not so likely to suffer from respect for paternal authority.