Church of England People by the Reverend A.H.  Stanton. Look at this book, Helen. The Catholic Religion by Vernon Staley. No wonder you hate Protestants, you ungrateful boy.  No wonder you’re longing to burn your uncle and aunt.  It’ll be in the Slowbridge Herald to-morrow.  Headlines!  Ruin!  They’ll think I’m a Jesuit in disguise.  I ought to have got a very handsome sum of money for the good-will.  Go back to your class-room, and if you have a spark of affection in your nature, don’t brag about this to the other boys.”

Mark, pondering all the morning the best thing to do for Cyril, remembered that a boy called Hacking lived at The Laurels, 36, Cranborne Road.  He did not like Hacking, but wishing to utilize his back garden for the purpose of communicating with the prisoner he made himself agreeable to him in the interval between first and second school.

“Hullo, Hacking,” he began.  “I say, do you want a cricket bat?  I shan’t be here next summer, so you may as well have mine.”

Hacking looked at Mark suspicious of some hidden catch that would make him appear a fool.

“No, really I’m not ragging,” said Mark.  “I’ll bring it round to you after dinner.  I’ll be at your place about a quarter to two.  Wait for me, won’t you?”

Hacking puzzled his brains to account for this generous whim, and at last decided that Mark must be “gone” on his sister Edith.  He supposed that he ought to warn Edith to be about when Mark called; if the bat was not forthcoming he could easily prevent a meeting.  The bat however turned out to be much better than he expected, and Hacking was on the point of presenting Cressida to Troilus when Troilus said: 

“That’s your garden at the back, isn’t it?”

Hacking admitted that it was.

“It looks rather decent.”

Hacking allowed modestly that it wasn’t bad.

“My father’s rather dead nuts on gardening.  So’s my kiddy sister,” he added.

“I vote we go out there,” Mark suggested.

“Shall I give a yell to my kiddy sister?” asked Pandarus.

“Good lord, no,” Mark exclaimed.  “Don’t the Pomeroys live next door to you?  Look here, Hacking, I want to speak to Cyril Pomeroy.”

“He was absent this morning.”

Mark considered Hacking as a possible adjutant to the enterprise he was plotting.  That he finally decided to admit Hacking to his confidence was due less to the favourable result of the scrutiny than to the fact that unless he confided in Hacking he would find it difficult to communicate with Cyril and impossible to manage his escape.  Mark aimed as high as this.  His first impulse had been to approach the Vicar of Meade Cantorum, but on second thoughts he had rejected him in favour of Mr. Dorward, who was not so likely to suffer from respect for paternal authority.

“Look here, Hacking, will you swear not to say a word about what I’m going to tell you?”