FullReads

Terry’s chief difficulty that evening was getting hold of Ginger. His mother had explained, adequately, that Ginger was a roughneck, if indeed not an alley cat, and it was timeshe didsomething about Terry’s taste for low companyand where he GOT it, she couldn’t see—and his father was justas bad.

By bribing the chambermaid to call Ginger, Terry was able to meet him for a second at the elevator.

“Look! Ginger! Be up here tomorrow, six in the morning. Max’ll be here. We’re going to run away; going to be pirates. Understand—six!”

“I’ll be there, Gaffer! I’m not on duty till eight—I live out— but I’ll sleep in a linen closet ’ere tonight, swelp me Bob!”

It was only because his mind was charged with the thought that he was going to run away now and lead the jaunty life of a pirate that Terry managed to awake at a quarter to six. He slipped into blue knickers and a blue jacket, creeping softly about the fog-dimmed room that he might not awaken the snorting Humberstone in the room beyond; he tiptoed down the corridor, followed by Josephus the hound, just as Ginger emerged from an elevator which he had run himself, and as Maximilian slipped up the darkness of the back stairs.

Terry whispered feverishly, “We aregoing to run away. Now swear it!”

“I swear!” muttered Maximilian and Ginger.

“Swert!” said Josephus.

“Till death do us part, by jiminy Christmas!”

“Till death do us part!”

“And,” croaked Terry, suddenly inspired, “we’re going to start right now. ”

“Oh, I say, Terry, we couldn’t do that! Not—not right now, without making plans. Boys always make plans before they run away. Lookit Tom Sawyer and Huck,” protested Max.

“Am I the boss of this gang?”

Maximilian said humbly, admiringly, “Yes, Terry, but—”

“Am I, Ginger; am I, hey?”

“Ra-ther!”

“Didn’t you,” Terry demanded of Maximilian, “have some trouble getting up here this morning?”

“Yes. I did. I met a policeman patrolling the hall. He didn’t dare say anything, but I know he watched me. I’m afraid he’ll go wake old Elopatak. ”

“Do you see? Just as I’ve told you,” crowed Terry. “Next time we may not be able to get together at all. We’ll start right now, this minute. Bimeby we’ll write nice letters to our mothers—and my, they’ll be proud as anything when we come back from pirating and give ’em parrots and ivory and Spanish doubloons and all like that. ”

“I’ve got no mother nor no father but I’ll give me Spanish doubloons to me uncle ‘Ennery—‘e used to be a pirate ‘isself—‘e says it’s a rare life. I fancy we’ll find a good pirate ship at Bristol,” said Ginger, in a judicious way.

“Come! We’ll start! Ginger’ll take us down to the basement and show us how to sneak out,” commanded Terry.

“But I SAY,” protested Maximilian, “we have no money. ”

“Haven’t we, though?” Terry jeered. “Lookit! Here’s fifty pounds Mother gave me. I was to give it to the Infants’ Charitable and Rehabilitation Institution today … It wouldbe good publicity, at that. Pictures of me giving each kid a pound. Still, I guess pirates don’t go out for publicity much. Not anyway when they’re running away from their mothers. Come on, willyou?”

And the resolute Terry was followed down the hall, into the elevator, through monastic cellars and corridors and fog-choked areaways, by the uneasy Maximilian and the triumphant Ginger. But as they came out on Berkeley Square, in a wet dawn smelling of coal smoke, broken only by the sound of a one-lunged taxicab, as Maximilian realized that he had escaped from the ardors of kinghood without being captured, while at the same time Ginger realized that he had given up an excellent job and was committing a felony, to wit, stealing and abstracting a valuable piece of property, to wit, one blue uniform, the property of the Hotel Picardie Co. , Inc. , London W. I, their attitudes changed. Ginger became uneasy, looking back, trying to whistle, while Max strode on, rising into song, breathing this damp exciting air, peering into this mysterious fog, for the first time an adventurer in a land of boundless freedom, safe from the respectfully disapproving people who every moment watched him.

And as for Josephus, he rushed hither and yon with all the excitement of an honest alley dog who has been released from a satin suite.