'Half a second,' said the Babe, 'I'll go and get help. You chaps had better stay here and talk to him.' He ran off.
'How many of you are there up there?' asked Jim.
'Only Tony and myself,' said Charteris.
'Thought I heard somebody else.'
'Oh, that was the Babe. He's gone off to get help.'
'Oh. When he comes back, wring his neck, and heave him down here,' said Jim. 'I want a word with him on the subject of short cuts. I say, is there much excitement about this?'
'Rather. All the House-prefects are out after you. We've been looking in Parker's Spinney, and Tony was reluctantly compelled to knock out a keeper who tried to stop us. You should have been there. It was a rag.'
'Wish I had been. Hullo, is that the Babe come back?'
It was. The Babe, with his father and a party of friends arrayed in evening dress. They carried a ladder amongst them.
The pungent remarks Jim had intended to address to the Babe had no opportunity of active service. It was not the Babe who carried him up the ladder, but two of the dinner-party. Nor did the Babe have a hand in the carrying of the stretcher. That was done by as many of the evening-dress brigade as could get near enough. They seemed to enjoy it. One of them remarked that it reminded him of South Africa. To which another replied that it was far more like a party of policemen gathering in an 'early drunk' in the Marylebone Road. The procession moved on its stately way to the Babe's father's house, and the last Tony and Charteris saw of Jim, he was the centre of attraction, and appeared to be enjoying himself very much.