P. G. Wodehouse

“ Don’t you wish you’d been here when the League was on before?”
“I should think I did. Race you over to the shop. I want to get something before it shuts.”
“Right ho!” And they disappeared.
O’Hara waited where he was till six struck from the clock-tower, followed by the sound of the bell as it rang for lock-up. Then he picked his way carefully through the groves of chairs, barking his shins now and then on their out-turned legs, and, pushing open the door, went out into the open air. It felt very fresh and pleasant after the brand of atmosphere supplied in the vault. ”

“ We couldn’t keep them in the house, as they’d have got dropped on in a second, so we had to think of somewhere else, and thought why not keep them down here?”
“Why, indeed?” said O’Hara. “Do ye find they like it?”
“Oh, they don’t mind,” said Harvey. “We feed ’em twice a day. Once before breakfast—­we take it in turns to get up early—­and once directly after school. And on half-holidays and Sundays we take them out on to the downs.” ”

“ I don’t see what else a chap would be after.”
“He might be keeping ferrets,” hazarded Renford.
“The whole school doesn’t keep ferrets,” said O’Hara. “You’re unique in that way. No, it must be the League, an’ I mean to wait here till they come.”
“Not all night?” asked Harvey. He had a great respect for O’Hara, whose reputation in the school for out-of-the-way doings was considerable. In the bright lexicon of O’Hara he believed there to be no such word as “impossible.”
“No,” said O’Hara, “but till lock-up. You two had better cut now.” ”