"Corning down to Cook's?" he said to his ally, Painter. It was just a
week since the Sheen episode.

"All right," said Painter.

"Suppose we go by the High Street," suggested Jackson, casually.

"Then we'd better get a few more chaps," said Painter.

A few more chaps were collected, and the party, numbering eight, set
off for the town. There were present such stalwarts as Borwick and
Crowle, both of Dexter's, and Tomlin, of the School House, a useful man
to have by you in an emergency. It was Tomlin who, on one occasion,
attacked by two terrific champions of St Jude's in a narrow passage,
had vanquished them both, and sent their mortar-boards miles into the
empyrean, so that they were never the same mortar-boards again, but
wore ever after a bruised and draggled look.

The expedition passed down the High Street without adventure, until, by
common consent, it stopped at the lofty wall which bounded the
playground of St Jude's.

From the other side of the wall came sounds of revelry, shrill
squealings and shoutings. The Judies were disporting themselves at one
of their weird games. It was known that they played touch-last, and
Scandal said that another of their favourite recreations was marbles.
The juniors at Wrykyn believed that it was to hide these excesses from
the gaze of the public that the playground wall had been made so high.
Eye-witnesses, who had peeped through the door in the said wall,
reported that what the Judies seemed to do mostly was to chase one