CHAPTER IV.
THE BIRD-FANCIERS.
"I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed:
But let me the plunder forbear,
She would say 'twas a barbarous deed."—Rowe.
"And now, my lad, take them five shilling,
And on my advice in future think;
So Billy pouched them all so willing,
And got that night disguised in drink."
The next morning at first lesson Tom was turned back in his lines, and so had to wait till the second round, while Martin and Arthur said theirs all right and got out of school at once. When Tom got out and ran down to breakfast at Harrowell's they were missing, and Stumps informed him that they had swallowed down their breakfasts and gone off together, where, he couldn't say. Tom hurried over his own breakfast and went first to Martin's study and then to his own, but no signs of the missing boys were to be found. He felt half angry and jealous of Martin—Where could they be gone?
He learnt second lesson with East and the rest in no very good temper, and then went out into the (quadrangle. About ten minutes before school Martin and Arthur arrived in the quadrangle breathless; and, catching sight of him, Arthur rushed up, all excitement, and with a bright glow on his face.
