Wheeler gave the conversation a different turn.
"How are you fellows going to get in?" He referred to their effecting an entrance into Mecklemburg House.
"Knock at the door, of course, and pull the bell, and dance a break-down on the steps, and make a shindy generally, so as to let 'em know we've come." These suggestions came from Griffin. Wheeler took up the parable.
"And tell old Mother Fletcher to let us have something hot for supper, and to look alive and get it, and make it tripe and onions, with a glass of stout to follow. I just fancy what she'd say."
"And tell her," continued Griffin, "that we've been paying a visit to a nice, kind gentleman, who happens to be raving mad."
"And she'd be pleased to hear that he advised us all to run away, and waste no time about it. Where did he advise us to go to? The land of golden dreams? Oh, my crikey, don't I see her face!"
Bailey made a remark of a practical kind.
"We can get in fast enough, there are always plenty of windows open." It is not impossible that the young gentleman had made an entrance into Mecklemburg House by some such way before.
"It's easy enough to get in," said Ellis, "but what are we to say in the morning? It'll take about a week to dry my things, and about a month to get the mud off."
"I shouldn't be surprised if old Shane got sacked," chuckled Wheeler.
"It will be jolly hard lines if he does," said Ellis.
"Oh, what's the odds? he shouldn't have let us go!" Which remark of Wheeler's was pretty good, considering the circumstances under which Mr. Shane's permission had been obtained.
Just then Bailey stopped, and began to peer about him in the night.
"Have you lost your way?" asked Ellis. "That'll be the best joke of all if you have. Fancy camping out a night like this! We shan't quite be drowned by the morning, but just about almost."
"I'm going to cut across this field," said Bailey. "It's ever so far round by the road, but we shall get there in less than no time if we go this way."
"Fancy cutting across fields on a night like this! Oh, my gracious! what will old Mother Fletcher say?"
Bailey climbed over a gate, and the others clambered after him. It might be the shortest cut, but it was emphatically the dirtiest.