- 12 -
"Are you an O.E.?" the policeman enquired.
"No," said Jas. Hook, being thus the first Old Etonian to deny that dear impeachment. But he did it for the honour of the school.
"Then make a move," the policeman said, and Hook (I swear to the truth of this) slunk away. It was all he could do for Eton, but he did it. To me it seemed so much that my face was streaked, though there were no trees on my side of the street. For an hour or more I searched for him, hesitating to find, but in my last sight of him he was slinking. He was an O.E. and he was slinking.
Thus Mr. Jasper, to whom my thanks are due. Hook, however, was seen later that night by various persons with whom I have conversed; once he was gazing long at the darkened windows of his tutor's house, no doubt picking out one particular room, his own, now silent in slumber ("oh that I were the happy dream that creeps to her soft heart"), and again sitting on Sheep's Bridge and wandering desolately round Dutchman's Farm. Probably the grimmest experience of the night went to a scug who was largely unconscious of it until enquiries by Mr. Jasper woke him to a sense of his peril and his importance. He occupies a chamber which was formerly part of the meeting-place of Pop(now more splendidly housed), and he woke about midnight or later to find Hook sitting in his room. Addressed indignantly the intruder was meditating too profoundly to hear, and the boy was about to make another
