This rebuke during the sober hours of school paled much of the
glory of the Wild West for me and the confused puffy face of Leo
Dillon awakened one of my consciences. But when the restraining
influence of the school was at a distance I began to hunger again
for wild sensations, for the escape which those chronicles of
disorder alone seemed to offer me. The mimic warfare of the
evening became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school
in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to
myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people
who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

The summer holidays were near at hand when I made up my mind
to break out of the weariness of schoollife for one day at least.
With Leo Dillon and a boy named Mahony I planned a day's
miching. Each of us saved up sixpence. We were to meet at ten in
the morning on the Canal Bridge. Mahony's big sister was to write
an excuse for him and Leo Dillon was to tell his brother to say he
was sick. We arranged to go along the Wharf Road until we came
to the ships, then to cross in the ferryboat and walk out to see the
Pigeon House. Leo Dillon was afraid we might meet Father Butler
or someone out of the college; but Mahony asked, very sensibly,
what would Father Butler be doing out at the Pigeon House. We
were reassured: and I brought the first stage of the plot to an end
by collecting sixpence from the other two, at the same time
showing them my own sixpence. When we were making the last
arrangements on the eve we were all vaguely excited. We shook
hands, laughing, and Mahony said:

"Till tomorrow, mates!"