“How do you start being a soldier?”
“You go to school first—preparatory,” said Alister, putting away the concertina, much to Boy’s relief. “I’m there now. Then you go to a regular public military training school, and you learn heaps and heaps of things,—then you are measured and weighed, and your chest is thumped and your teeth looked to, then if that’s all right, you perhaps go to Sandhurst, and then you pass all sorts of stiff exams. In fact,” said Alister, warming with his subject, “you learn everything! There’s nothing that you’re not expected to know. Think of that! And you must keep your teeth all right, and your chest sound, and you must grow to a certain height. Oh, there’s lots to do all round, I can tell you!”
“I see!”
Boy’s heart sank, but he determined to ask to be sent to school directly he went home again. He would not, if he could help it, remain under the tuition of Rattling Jack.
“Aren’t you going to school?” queried Alister.
“I hope so.”
“Come to mine,” said Alister. “It’s awfully jolly,—we play cricket and football and hockey, and we have supper-fights and no end of larks. Ask your father to send you to mine. I’ll give you the address when we get home.”
“Thanks,” said Boy, with an attempt to look as if the going to Alister’s school would be the easiest thing in the world,—“I will see if I can come.”
Poor little lad! He had no more hope of being sent to Alister’s school than of being carried off in a fairy boat to the moon. But he thought a great deal about school that night when he had parted from his chum.
“I’ll tell mother I want to go to school,” he said to himself. “That can do no harm. If she won’t send me I’ll have to run away.”