"I'll give you a note to him. He knows all about it. He'll get you out at once."
"Thank you," said William faintly.
He put the note in his pocket and strode briskly out in search of the dear old queue.
"It will be quicker after all," he told himself, as he took his place at the end of the queue next to a Lieutenant in the Manchesters. ("Don't crowd him," said a policeman to William; "he wants air.")
And you think perhaps that the story ends here, with William in the queue again? Oh, no. William is a man of resource. The very next day he met another friend, who said, "Hallo, aren't you out yet?"
"Not yet," said William.
"My boy got out a month ago."
"H-h-h-how?" said William.
"Ah well, you see, he's going up to Cambridge. Complete his education and all the rest of it. They let 'em out at once on that."