The three boys piled out of the fly, and in a moment were merrily greeting the crowd of youngsters who already had established themselves about the long deal table in Mrs. Wadmer’s hospitable kitchen. “Hello, Jim!” “Hello, Kit!” “Hello, Tony,” and a dozen other names, nicknames or parts of names, rang out. The boys shook hands, exchanged rapid notes of vacation experiences, gulped down several glasses of cider, and consumed a score or so of luscious tarts.
“When did you get back, Tack?” Kit enquired of a large, ungainly, rosy-cheeked boy who came from Maine.
“This morning,” answered Turner. “I came down on the boat last night to New York—scrumptious time. Say, Kit, have you heard the latest at school?”
“No, we just got in, crawled across the flats from Coventry. What’s up?”
“What’s up? why, some meddlesome jackanapes in the Sixth got wise to something irregular last winter and has gone to the Doctor with a doleful tale about the wickedness that’s supposed to go on in the Woods; so the fiat has gone forth: no caves for boys below the Fourth.”
“No caves!” shouted a dozen boys. A storm of protests and exclamations arose. “Well,” said Jimmie, as the hubbub ceased, “school will be a jolly old jumping-off place then.”
“No caves for boys below the Fourth,” echoed Kit. “Well, I announce my promotion then. Come on, Tony; come on, Jim; let’s get up to school and get the facts.”
They stalked out amidst howls of derision, and re-entered their chariot. Jimmie had taken care, however, to direct Mrs. Wadmer to stack it well with such provisions as were in customary requisition in Lovel’s Woods. The worthy landlady of the Pie-house was officially deaf to all rules that emanated from the Head unless they were presented to her in writing. She owed, it may be said in parenthesis, her long career under the shadow of Deal School to the admirable loyalty of many generations of Deal boys.
As luck would have it, to Tony’s amusement as he watched Jimmie’s expression, the first person they met in the Old School whither they went at once to report, was Mr. Roylston, who held a roll-call in his hands and wore on his face a look of patient suffering and in his eyes an expression of latent indignation. Our friends, thanks to their digression at the Pie-house, were ten minutes late.