"Very well, come on home with me. There's plenty of room at the bottom of the garden, and there'll be no one to see us there except Mike, and I'll take care he is sent somewhere else."
"That will do," said Phra. "How many balls shall we want?"
"Only one, of course."
"Why not have two?" said Phra. "One apiece; then we shouldn't fall out."
"And we shouldn't be playing at football. This ball will do. Come on."
Phra made no further opposition, but he hazarded the remark that it was rather hot to play.
"Yes, this is the hottest place I was ever in," said Harry. "There couldn't be any place hotter. But come along; English boys don't study about its being hot or cold when they want to do anything. I'm glad Doctor Cameron is nowhere near. He'd be interfering and dictating about the game directly. That's the worst of him, he knows so much. It will be much nicer for us to learn how to play well before he sees us at it, and then we shall know as much as he does."
The boys trudged off, with the sun shining down upon them as it can shine down in Siam. It was somewhere about a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and it may readily be set down as being a hundred and twenty in the sun; so that Harry was quite right in his remarks about Dr. Cameron, for if he had been present he most assuredly would have interfered to the extent of making them put the football away, and ordering them into the shade.
But there was no one to interfere, as they trudged on, and entered by the gate of the bungalow, finding all very quiet till they got around to the back, where a peculiar noise came through the open jalousies of one window, making Harry step forward on tip-toe till he could look in.
This done, he stepped cautiously back to his companion.