He went out with the stream of spectators at the end in a golden dream of happiness. He saw himself, browned from head to foot, brandishing some weapon and dancing on bare brown feet in a savage land. He was so rapt in his day-dream that he collided with a tall lank VI. Form boy who was coming along the passage carrying a box.
"Look out where you're going, can't you?" said that superior individual coldly. "Do you want me to drop this stuff all over the place?"
He pointed with a languid hand to "this stuff." "This stuff" was sticks of brown and red and black grease paint, pots of cold cream, and tins of powder.
"Shall I carry it for you?" he said meekly. "So's to save you trouble?"
The VI. Form boy started. William's attitude towards his intellectual superiors generally lacked that respect which is the due of intellectual superiors.
"Er--all right," he said, handing the box to William and walking on down the passage.
William walked meekly behind with the box in his arms. Very neatly as he turned the corner he transferred two sticks of brown grease paint from the tray to his own pocket. He sternly informed his conscience (never a very active force with William and quite easily subdued) as he did so that he'd helped to pay for the beastly things, hadn't he, anyway, by paying (or getting his mother to pay) two shillings for a rotten seat in the rotten back row, where he could only see by squinting round the feather in Dawson's mother's hat, and anyway he'd like to know whose business it was but his. His conscience retired, completely crushed.
[Illustration: WILLIAM SURVEYED HIMSELF AGAIN IN THE GLASS, AND A BLISSFUL SMILE STOLE OVER HIS COCOA-HUED FACE]
At the door of the VI. Form room he handed the box to the secretary of the Dramatic Society.
The secretary of the Dramatic Society entered the holy sanctum.
"That young Brown's manners," he remarked patronisingly to his peers, "seem to be improving."
William surveyed the effect in the looking-glass. It was perfect. He had completely used up the two sticks of brown grease paint upon the exposed parts of his person. He found the question of clothing rather a difficulty. He possessed no garment of the type that the aborigines had worn, but his ordinary suit was, of course, unthinkable. Football shorts seemed better--and a green football shirt that had been Robert's. They partook in some way of the nature of fancy dress. Robed in them he surveyed himself again in the glass and a blissful smile stole over his cocoa-hued face. He was a perfect aborigine. It only remained to go out into the world to seek adventures.