“Harry,” said Dick, after a pause, “I’ve got an idea.  Suppuse we separate and take different ways to get to Waterloo?  Wouldn’t that make it safer?  We could meet there and go back to Ealing together.”

“That’s a good idea, Dick,” said Harry.  He didn’t think that their present errand was one of great importance, in spite of what Colonel Throckmorton had said.  He thought it more likely that they were being tried out and tested, so that the colonel might draw his own conclusions as to how far he might safely trust them in the future.  But he repressed his inclination to smile at this sudden excess of caution on Dick’s part.  It was a move in the right direction, certainly.

“Yes, we’ll do that,” he said.  “I’ll walk across the bridge, and you can take the tube under the river from the Monument.”

They followed that plan, and met without incident at the station.  Here more than ever the fact of war was in evidence.  A considerable space in and near the station had been roped off and sentries refused to allow any to pass who could not prove that they had a right to do so.  The ordinary peaceful vocation of the great terminal was entirely suspended.

“Anything happen to you ?” asked Harry with a smile.  “I nearly got run over —­ but that was my own fault.”

“No, nothing.  I saw Graves.  And he wanted to know what I was doing.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.  I said, ‘Don’t you wish you knew?’ And he got angry, and said he didn’t care.”

“It wasn’t any of his business.  You did right,” said Harry.

They had to wait a few moments to see Major French, who was exceedingly busy.  They need no one to tell them what was going on.  At the platform trains were waiting, and, even while they looked on, one after another drew out, loaded with soldiers.  The windows were whitewashed, so that, once the doors of the compartments were closed, none could see who was inside.  There was no cheering, which seemed strange at first, but it was so plain that this was a precautionary measure that the boys understood it easily enough.  Finally Major French, an energetic, sunburned man, who looked as if he hadn’t slept for days, came to them.  They handed him the papers they carried.  He glanced at them, signed receipts which he handed to them, and then frowned for a moment.

“I think I’ll let you take a message to Colonel Throckmorton for me,” he said, then, giving them a kindly smile.  “It will be a verbal message.  You are to repeat what I tell you to him without a change.  And I suppose I needn’t tell you that you must give it to no one else?”

“No, sir.” they chorused.

“Very well, then.  You will tell him that trains will be waiting below Surbiton, at precisely ten o’clock tonight.  Runways will be built to let the men climb the embankment, and they can entrain there.  You will remember that ?”