Other boys might stray down the High Street and look at the shops, but they didn’t. Others might go down to the beach and become familiar with the boatmen, but our heroes were far too respectable. Others might “mitch” off for a private cruise round Sprit Rock in quest of whiting, or other treasures of the deep; but Dick and Georgie would not sully their fair fame with any such breach of Templeton rules.
They kept up early morning “Tub,” but that was the limit of their wanderings from the fold, and it was often amusing to mark the diligence with which they always took to drying their heads with the towels on the way up, if ever a boatman happened to cross their path.
Heathcote on more than one occasion was compelled, politely but firmly, to decline Pledge’s commissions into the town, although it sometimes cost him words, and, worse still, sneers from his patron.
Once, however, he had to yield, and a terrible afternoon he spent in consequence.
“Youngster,” said the ‘Spider,’ “I want you to go to Webster’s in High Street and get a book for me.”
“Afraid I can’t, Pledge,” said Heathcote. “I must swot this afternoon.”
“What have you got to do?”
“There’s thirty lines of Cicero, and I haven’t looked at them.”
“I’ll do it for you before you come back.”
“And there are some Latin verses for Westover, too.”