'Be quiet,' I shouted. 'Will you be--'

There was a quick footstep outside, the door flew open, and on the
threshold stood a short, sturdy man in a motoring coat and cap.
The upper part of his face was covered by a strip of white linen,
with holes for the eyes, and there was a Browning pistol in his
hand.

It is my belief that, if assistant-masters were allowed to wear
white masks and carry automatic pistols, keeping order in a school
would become child's play. A silence such as no threat of bad
marks had ever been able to produce fell instantaneously upon the
classroom. Out of the corner of my eye, as I turned to face our
visitor, I could see small boys goggling rapturously at this
miraculous realization of all the dreams induced by juvenile
adventure fiction. As far as I could ascertain, on subsequent
inquiry, not one of them felt a tremor of fear. It was all too
tremendously exciting for that. For their exclusive benefit an
illustration from a weekly paper for boys had come to life, and
they had no time to waste in being frightened.

As for me, I was dazed. Motor bandits may terrorize France, and
desperadoes hold up trains in America, but this was peaceful
England. The fact that Buck MacGinnis was at large in the
neighbourhood did not make the thing any the less incredible. I
had looked on my affair with Buck as a thing of the open air and
the darkness. I had figured him lying in wait in lonely roads,
possibly, even, lurking about the grounds; but in my most
apprehensive moments I had not imagined him calling at the front