Dick mounted the stairs slowly, sick with disappointment.
"So much for our literary ambition, Roger, old pard," he groaned. "What sort of a kick-off do you call this? Couldn't be rottener, in my opinion."
And Roger, at a loss for words of consolation, savagely knocked a dictionary off the table.
CHAPTER V
Rhymes and Riddles
The School Shrubbery was deserving of a better name, for some of the trees were ripe in years, with interwoven branches "that licked a freehand drawing-book hollow", as Robin Arkness put it.
Indeed, to Robin and his Merry Men it was nothing so common as "The Shrubbery". They called it "The Forest", wherein, on high days and holidays, it was possible to have the most delightful adventures that ever gladdened the heart of a romantic schoolboy.
Arkness himself had gradually gathered the band of Juniors together, and his nimble wits were never at a loss for entertainment. His Merry Men voted the sport he provided "real pie", knowing themselves to be a source of envy to most of the Junior School.
A youngster needed to be sturdy and strong indeed to be admitted to the select circle of comrades who made the Forest their haunt. Sometimes a whole term went by without anyone qualifying for membership. This was a very clannish band of brothers indeed!
On an afternoon which was more like midwinter than autumn, so shrewdly nipped the air, the Merry Men collected fuel and lit a fire—not one big enough to attract a prefect's attention, but still sufficiently cosy to thaw the "cold ache" out of their fingers.