fill the basins. No place for a lusty man like old Richards. I'm tu
thickabout to go ferritin'. Thank 'ee, Muster Corkran."

The water squirted through the tap just inside the cupboard, and,
having filled the basins, the grateful Richards waddled away.

The boys sat round-eyed on their beds considering the possibilities of
this trove. Two floors below them they could hear the hum of the
angry house; for nothing is so still as a dormitory in mid-afternoon
of a midsummer term.

"It has been papered over till now." McTurk examined the little door.
"If we'd only known before!"

"I vote we go down and explore. No one will come up this time o' day.
We needn't keep _cave'_."

They crawled in, Stalky leading, drew the door behind them, and on all
fours embarked on a dark and dirty road full of plaster, odd
shavings, and all the raffle that builders leave in the waste room of
a house. The passage was perhaps three feet wide, and, except for the
struggling light round the edges of the cupboards (there was one to
each dormer), almost pitchy dark.

"Here's Macrea's house," said Stalky, his eye at the crack of the
third cupboard. "I can see Barnes's name on his trunk. Don't make
such a row, Beetle! We can get right to the end of the Coll. Come
on!... We're in King's house now--I can see a bit of Rattray's trunk.
How these beastly boards hurt one's knees!" They heard his nails
scraping, on plaster.