As his delighted boys went off to their houses they gave him a final cheer, which filled him with joy. On his way home he met one of the older masters and told him of the demonstration, adding, “Oh, I do so adore your quaint customs!” The astounded old Etonian held his peace, but at the end of that half the newcomer had to betake himself elsewhere, it being clear that the Eton boys were too much for him. [SN: ESCAPADES] The old lawless spirit which had prompted so many poaching expeditions and illicit rambles in the eighteenth century still lingered in the writer’s day, when six or seven boys established a regular club, where they could smoke and play nap, in a room over a Windsor toy-shop. One of the chief organisers--now a Peer who has filled several important public appointments--always took care to provide a rope-ladder by which the party might escape in the event of a raid. Some of the Windsor billiard-rooms were also occasionally frequented by a few older boys, some of whom had a regular arrangement which ensured them the exclusive use of the table on certain days of the week. As far as the present writer’s experience went, no serious harm resulted from these sternly prohibited escapades. Nevertheless, afternoons passed in the consumption of much tobacco and some alcohol did no good to health. The authorities, whenever any rumour of such breaches of the school discipline reached their ears, did everything in their power to set matters right. The wonder was, considering how alert were some of the masters, that more of the culprits were not caught. The writer remembers three--one of whom was his friend Mr. Douglas Ainslie, now a well-known poet and critic--who had a very narrow escape indeed. On such afternoons as they indulged in surreptitious visits to a certain hostelry, these boys used to get into their house after Lock-Up through the room of a small fag, who received careful instructions to look out for their return behind the drawn blind of his window, by which access could be contrived from the street. The signal agreed upon was a pebble thrown gently at the glass. For a time this arrangement worked well enough, but one winter’s evening the party, on reaching their house, were dismayed at obtaining no response. One of them--in after life a gallant officer of Highlanders who fell fighting at the head of his men in South Africa--by climbing up and breaking a pane of glass, managed to effect an entrance; his companions followed, and what was their surprise on relighting the light, which had fallen over in the scuffle, to find, cowering in the corner of the room, a beautiful little girl, who was fairly frightened to death! When at last reassured, this child explained that she was the sister of the owner of the room, who had gone out to borrow some tea-things from a friend. Needless to say, under such circumstances, the Lower boy got no hiding for his delinquency.