"Four minutes to sunset," he announced.
But there was no need to tell Billie to stand by to strike the flag that hung motionless above the gable where the old billiard-room and gun-room had been thrown together to make the schoolroom. The halyards were already in his hands.
"Here, Corin," Stan called, "you shall fire the gun to-night."
Corin gave a wild yell of joy. Well out of reach, there was an electric button on one of the rose-grown verandah posts. Stan lifted his newest recruit to it, who put a finger-tip on it and shut his eyes——
"Bang!" went the little brass carronade in the locked enclosure behind the woodshed——
And hand over hand Billie hauled the flag down.
But it would be run up again in the morning.
Printed by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.