He felt a sudden strange impulse of family affection.

He would like to have gathered behind him his father and mother, Mary, Helen, Hamlet, Uncle Samuel--yes, and even Aunt Amy, and to have advanced not only upon Ernest, but upon the whole Dean's family.
It would have given him great pleasure to have set his teeth into the fat legs of the Dean himself; he would gladly have torn the hat from the head of Mrs.Dean...

Upon Ernest there was no torture he would not employ.
He would get even; he resolved that before he left that house he would have his revenge.
Kind Miss Maddison, tripping along and seeing him as a pathetic little boy in a sailor suit without guile or malice, swept him into an "I spy" party composed for the most part of small girls who fell down and cried and said they would go home.
Jeremy, hiding behind a tree, watched the thin back of Ernest as it lifted itself autocratically above two small boys who looked up to him with saucer-eyes.

Ernest was obviously talking about his school.

Jeremy, lost in the contemplation of his vengeance, forgot his game, and was taken prisoner with the greatest of ease.