to enlist."'

'He'll go for a drummer-boy as soon as he's big enough, and I'll go with
him!' cried Carrots.

'Oh, come on,' shouted one of the impatient ones; 'if Ted's not here, let
us begin without him.'

And Teddy's delinquencies at school were soon forgotten in the excitement
of the game.

He had not been kept in, but had slipped away the minute school was over,
and was soon dodging in and out of the thick overhanging trees along the
edge of his favourite stream. His little feet sped swiftly along, and as
he ran he talked in a whisper to himself, which was his way when anything
special was weighing on his mind. 'I'll go right into the wood, and get
under a thick tree. I won't let a squirrel see me, nor even a rabbit. I
must be quite quiet, and it must be like church, and I shan't come away
till I've done it.'

Into the wood he went, but he was hard to satisfy; roaming here and
there, peeping round corners, and thrusting his curly head in amongst the
bushes, it was fully half an hour before he chose his spot.

It was a secluded little nook under an old oak-tree, where the moss grew
thick and green, and bushes of all sorts and sizes formed a natural bower
round the gnarled trunk. In front of this tree Teddy stood, and then,
half shyly, half reverently, he took off his cap and laid it on the
ground. Looking up through the veil of green leaves above him to the
sunny blue sky beyond, he stood with clasped hands and parted lips for a