“Holloa! Norman, look there!” he exclaimed.
“Where? what! oh, horror!” cried Norman.
“There they are—they're hid; now, there they are again!—now look, who is it? Stand behind this tree a minute—now let us look out.”
Obedient to his instructions, Norman looked, and saw three boys drop down one after another from the branch of a tree, that had evidently assisted their descent from the playground wall, and then run across the playground.
“Who are they?” said Trevannion, putting up his eye-glass (which, gentle reader, be it known he carried for use). “One is Churchill, I'm sure! Who's that long fellow? Why, it's Harris, isn't it? It can't be, surely!”
“It is,” said Norman; “and the other's Casson.”
“I'm sure they are at no good,” said Trevannion; “I shall make a note of this remarkable occurrence.”
So saying, he made a memorandum of the circumstance in his pocket-book, and had just finished when the boys poured out cloaked and great-coated, and informed him of the doctor's desires.
The reader will be at no loss to discover Hamilton's reason for exchanging the books. As Louis was out, he took Dr. Wilkinson's with him into the class-room, and sat down to finish the six last words of his poem; and then, folding it neatly up, enveloped it in half a sheet of writing-paper. He was just pressing the seal upon the wax, when his watch, which he had laid open before him, warned him that the last minutes of the quarter of an hour had arrived. He just pushed his things together, and left them on the table; and snatching up his hat as he ran through the hall, scarcely arrived at the garden-gate in time to save his character for punctuality.
It so happened that Casson was Louis' companion during the walk, and entertained him with a flowing account of all the vulgar tricks he had been in the habit of playing at his former school. Louis could not help laughing at them; nor would his vanity allow him to refrain from boasting of—what he had before been properly ashamed—his own share in some of Casson's late exploits. So afraid was he of seeming inferior, even to a person he despised, and in those things which his better feelings taught him equally to despise. Casson inwardly laughed at Louis' boasted feats, as he had always done to others when Louis was out of hearing; but he now quizzed him, stimulating him, by applauding his spirit and ingenuity; and by the time they had reached the house, Louis was in a thoroughly giddy humor, ready to try, at the risk of disgrace, the new schemes to which he had just been listening.