"So Green is dreaming again! Dear, dear! Dreaming again!" said the deliberate voice. "Dreaming of chocolate éclairs and the jigger-shop, eh, Green?"
[FURTHER PERSECUTION OF HICKEY]
Ever since the disillusionising encounter with Tabby, Hickey, like the obscure Bonaparte before the trenches of Toulon, walked moodily alone, absorbed in his own resolves, evolving his immense scheme of a colossal rebellion. Macnooder, alone, received the full confidence of the war à outrance with the faculty which he gradually evolved.
Macnooder was the man of peace, the Mazarin and the Machiavelli of the Dickinson. He risked nothing in action, but to his cunning mind with its legal sense of dangers to be met and avoided, were brought all the problems of conspiracies against the discipline of the school. Macnooder pronounced the scheme of a revolt heroic, all the more so that he saw an opportunity of essaying his strategy on large lines.
"We must begin on a small scale, Hickey," he said wisely, "and keep working up to something really big."