Page 69 - a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man

and bowing.
—Good day, sir, said Stephen.
He bowed and walked quietly out of the room, closing
the doors carefully and slowly.
But when he had passed the old servant on the landing
and was again in the low narrow dark corridor he began
to walk faster and faster. Faster and faster he hurried on
through the gloom excitedly. He bumped his elbow against
the door at the end and, hurrying down the staircase, walked
quickly through the two corridors and out into the air.
He could hear the cries of the fellows on the playgrounds.
He broke into a run and, running quicker and quicker,
ran across the cinderpath and reached the third line play-
ground, panting.
The fellows had seen him running. They closed round
him in a ring, pushing one against another to hear.
—Tell us! Tell us!
—What did he say?
—Did you go in?
—What did he say?
—Tell us! Tell us!
He told them what he had said and what the rector had
said and, when he had told them, all the fellows flung their
caps spinning up into the air and cried:
—Hurroo!
They caught their caps and sent them up again spinning
sky-high and cried again:
—Hurroo! Hurroo!
They made a cradle of their locked hands and hoisted

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