William The Outlaw by Richmal Crompton Page B

the face of the earth.
    Ethel had just sneezed and Mr Solomon was just thinking how much more musically she sneezed than anyone else he had ever met, when the mothers and helpers burst in upon them.
The helpers took in the situation at a glance, and never again did Mr Solomon recapture the pedestal from which that glance deposed him. But that is by the way. The immediate question was the Mixed
Infants. The babel was so deafening that it took a long time before Mr Solomon grasped what it was all about. Johnnie’s mother had a penetrating voice, and for a long time Mr Solomon thought
that all they had come to say was that Johnnie had lost his chest protector. When the situation finally dawned on him he blinked with horror and amazement.
    ‘B-b-but Mr Greene came to give the presents,’ he gasped, ‘it was Mr Greene.’
    ‘It certainly wasn’t Mr Greene,’ said a helper tartly, ‘it was a boy. We thought it must have been one of your Sunday School boys. We couldn’t see his face plainly
because of his beard.’
    A feeling of horror stole over Mr Solomon.
    ‘A b-b-boy?’ he gasped.
    ‘If I’d known he was going out like that,’ wailed Johnnie’s mother, ‘I’d never have taken it off.’
    ‘Wait a minute,’ stammered Mr Solomon excitedly, ‘I – I’ll go and speak to Mr Greene.’
    But the visit to Mr Greene was entirely fruitless of Mixed Infants. All it produced was the information that Mr Greene had been out all the afternoon and had received no message of any kind from
Mr Solomon.
    ‘They – they can’t really have gone,’ said Mr Solomon. ‘Perhaps they are hiding in some other classroom for a joke.’
    With a crowd of distracted mothers at his heels he returned to the School and conducted there a thorough and systematic search. Though thorough and systematic as a search could be, it revealed
no Mixed Infants. The attitude of the mothers was growing hostile. They evidently looked upon Mr Solomon as solely responsible for the calamity.
    ‘Sittin’ there,’ muttered a mother fiercely, ‘sittin’ there dallyin’ with red haired females while our children was bein’ stole – Nero !’
    ‘’ Erod! ’ said another not to be outdone in general culture.
    ‘ Crippen ’ said another showing herself more up-to-date.
    The perspiration was pouring from Mr Solomon’s brow. It was like a nightmare. He could not move anywhere without this crowd of hostile, muttering women. He had a horrible suspicion that
they were going to lynch him, hang him from the nearest lamppost. And what, oh what, in the name of St George’s Hall, had happened to the Mixed Infants?
    ‘Let us just look up and down the road again,’ he said hoarsely. Still muttering darkly they followed him into the road. He looked up and down it wildly. There wasn’t a Mixed
Infant to be seen anywhere. The threatening murmurs behind him grew louder.
    ‘Duck him,’ he heard and ‘Hangin’s too good for him,’ and ‘Wring his neck with my own hands I will if he doesn’t find ’em soon,’ and from
Johnnie’s mother: ‘Well, if I find him again it’ll be a lesson to me never to take it off no more.’
    ‘I – I’ll go and look round the village,’ said poor Mr Solomon desperately, ‘I’ll go to the police – I’ll promise I’ll find them.’
    ‘You’d better,’ said someone darkly.
    He tore in panic down the road. He tore in panic up the nearest street. And then suddenly he saw William’s face looking at him over a garden gate.
    ‘Hello,’ said William.
    ‘Do you know anything about those children?’ panted Mr Solomon.
    ‘Yes,’ said William calmly, ‘if you’ll promise to let me be a trumpeter in your band, you can have them. Will you?’
    ‘Y-yes,’ spluttered Mr Solomon.
    ‘On your honour?’ persisted William.

    ‘HERE THEY ARE,’ SAID WILLIAM. ‘YOU CAN HAVE ’EM IF YOU LIKE.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Mr Solomon.
    ‘An’ Ginger an’ Henry an’ Douglas – all trumpeters?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Mr