With great rapidity he dressed himself, only pausing for a moment to see that the one and fivepence was safe. His slippers were packed; he had come to bed in his boots. Holding them in his hand, in his stockinged feet he stole across the room, carefully turned the handle of the door, went out, and shut the door behind him. He met with no accident on his way to the schoolroom. Within five minutes of his leaving his bed he was standing among the desks and forms. The blinds had not been drawn: the moonlight flooded the room--at any rate, the moon had not gone down. He was going to carry out so much of his plans--he was to fly through a moonlit world. Perhaps after all the little accident which had caused him to shut his eyes was not of much importance. Certainly, the sleep had refreshed him; he felt capable of making for the Land of Golden Dreams without requiring to pause upon the way. Among the moonlit desks and forms he put his boots on; laced them up; then, with a careful hand, slipped the hasp of the familiar window, raised the sash, got out, and lowered himself to the ground. It was only when he was on the ground that he remembered that he was without a cap. He put his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and produced an old cricket cap which he had privately secured when he was supposed to be assisting at the packing. Then he started for the Land of Golden Dreams. Chapter X ANOTHER LITTLE DRIVE He ran across the courtyard, glancing up at the silent house behind him. In the moonlight Mecklemburg House looked like a house of the dead. Through the gate, and out into the road; then, for a moment, Bertie paused. "Which way shall I go?" He stood, hesitating, looking up and down the road. In his anxiety to reach the Land of Golden Dreams he had not paused to consider which was the road he had to take to get there. Such a detail had not occurred to him. He had taken it for granted that the road would choose itself; now he perceived that he had to choose the road. "I'll go to London--something's sure to turn up when I get there. It always does. In London all sorts of things happen to a fellow." His right hand in his pocket, clasping his one and fivepence, he turned his face towards Cobham. He had a vague idea that to reach town one had to get to Kingston, and he knew that through Cobham and Esher was the road to Kingston. If he kept to the road the way was easy, he had simply to keep straight on. He had pictured himself flying across the moonlit fields; but he concluded that, for the present, at any rate, he had better confine himself to the plain broad road.