On the inside was a fair-haired girl. Next to her walked a preoccupied young man who was holding a note pad in one hand and trying to write shorthand with the other.
On the outside marched a magnificent figure in flannels and a high-crowned hat of loose-woven straw. The curious voice of this figure carried and reverberated under the elms.
'One day towards the close of my fifteenth year, chancing to be in the auditorium at St. Just's, I can recall climbing up to the scene-shifters' platform over the stage. This chanced to be at a time when the Rev. Doctor Septimus Worcester was delivering a lecture on Palestine to the boys, otherwise assembled.
'I also recall that over the proscenium-arch, facing the auditorium, were two small and invisible doors like the doors of a cupboard. As Dr. Worcester spoke of Palestine, some impulse — I know not what — prompted me to fling these doors open, and, popping out my head, cry, 'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' before instantly closing the doors again.
'Nor could this fail to remind me of the occasion when I contrived to get an uncle of mine, George Byron Merrivale, chucked into the local clink for poaching. I will now tell my readers how I did this.'
Peace and drowsy airs lay on the world. The voice passed and faded away up the road.
