My first impulse was to exclaim delightedly in agreement, but there came misgivings again. I had not, so far, contemplated anything so audacious. Still, Moore, as he turned towards me interrogatively, must have seen the gleam in my eyes. He was as sharp as a needle. "Oh," I replied, "that would really be trespass. We must not do as much as that--just supposing we were seen? What could we say for ourselves?" "Just supposing we are _not_ seen," he said with boyish pertness. "Nonsense, Reggie--trust me for that." "Or if there are dogs about," I went on. "You'd have seen them, or they would have scented you that other day to a certainty. Besides, if there were, dogs always like me. I can always smooth them down," which was true enough. I had seen it tested more than once. Moore was one of those persons naturally gifted with a curious power over animals. "I don't say," he continued, evidently anxious to impress me with his caution and sobriety of judgment, "that I'd care to tackle a bloodhound or even a mastiff. But it's most unlikely that they have any fellows of the kind about the place. It would be known." This too was a reasonable presumption. Still I shook my head. "All the same, we shall be doing a thing we have no right to be doing," I persisted. Moore shrugged his shoulders. "If you go at it like that, there are a good many things we'd better not do," he said. "We've no _right_ to pick mushrooms in old Porson's fields at home, but no one has ever found fault with us for it." "Oh, that's quite different," I replied. "However," for I was anxious to drop the subject as far as possible, knowing by experience that once Moore got into an argument it was not easy to dislodge him without giving in entirely, "the first thing to be done is to look for the door in the wall, for if it is locked, there's an end to everything," though as I said the words, Jocelyn's ominous prediction, "he'd be scaling the walls and goodness only knows what," returned to my memory. "That was a stupid speech of mine," I said to myself. "Just the thing to start him on some wild scheme." And I now began to hope fervently, from the side of expediency as well as of curiosity, that the door should _not_ be locked. Moore took no apparent notice of my last remark, but after events proved that he had not only heard, but thoroughly digested it.