I had no time to answer this idle question, for it was now my turn. But I had no notion of making sport for my comrades by submitting to be classically racked; so I declared that I was even less prepared than my friend, and added that I trusted this testimony would corroborate the charge that the professor had been pleased to bring against me. I accompanied these words with a threatening look at the others, which at once checked their mirth; and the professor, either thinking he had gone far enough, or not deigning to notice my insolent speech, turned away with a shrug of the shoulders, and contented himself with treating us with silent contempt for the rest of the recitation, while towards the others he was unusually amiable, enlivening the lesson by sallies of the most classical and learned wit. No sooner had the door closed behind him, than Arthur stood up before the first form and said: "You fellows have behaved meanly again, as you always do; but as for me, I have no notion of staying here any longer. The old man will not be back any more to-day; and if the others ask for me, say I am sick." "And for me too," cried I, stepping up to Arthur and laying my arm on his shoulder. "I am going with him. A fellow that deserts his friend is a sneak." A moment later we had dropped from the window twelve feet into the yard, and crouching between two buttresses that the professor might not espy us as he went out, we consulted what was next to be done. There were two ways of getting out of the closed court in which we now were: either to slip through the long crooked corridors of the gymnasium--an old monastery--and so out into the street; or to go directly through the professor's house, which joined the yard at one corner, and thence upon the promenade, which nearly surrounded the town, and had in fact been constructed out of the old demolished town-walls. The first course was hazardous, for it often happened that a pair of teachers would walk up and down the cool corridors in conversation long after the regular time for the commencement of the lessons, and we had no minute to lose in waiting. The other was still more dangerous, for it led right through the lion's den; but it was far shorter, and practicable every moment, so we decided to venture it. Creeping close to the wall, right under the windows of our class-room, in which the second lesson had already begun, we reached the narrow gate that opened into the little yard of the professor's house. Here all was quiet; through the open door we could see into the wide hall paved with slabs of stone, where the professor, who had just returned, was playing with his youngest boy, a handsome black-haired little fellow of six years, chasing him with long strides, and clapping his white hands. The child laughed and shouted, and at one time ran out into the yard, directly towards where we were hidden behind a pile of firewood--two more steps of the little feet, and we should have been detected.