It might mean discharge.
It seemed such a pity, too, and I could not help thinking that this bad habit of Ike's was the reason why he had lived to fifty and never risen above the position of labourer.
I tried again to wake him, but it was of no use, and just then I heard Mr Solomon shout to me that tea was waiting.
I ran up the garden quickly for fear Mr Solomon should come down and see Ike, and as I went I made up my mind that I would get the key of the gate into the lane and come down after dark and smuggle him out without anyone knowing.
"Well, butterfly boy," said Mrs Solomon, smiling in her half-serious way, "we've been waiting tea these ten minutes." I said I was very sorry, and though I felt a little guilty as I sat down I soon forgot all about Ike in my pleasant meal.
Then I felt frightened as I heard some laughing and shouting, and started and listened, for it struck me that Courtenay and Philip might be going down the garden, and if they should see poor Ike in such a state, I knew that they would begin baiting and teasing him, when he would perhaps fly in a passion such as I had seen him in once before, when he abused me, and apologised the next day, saying that it wasn't temper, but beer.
The sound died away, and then it seemed to rise again nearer to us.
"Ah!" said Mr Solomon, "I'm sorry for those who have boys." "No, you are not, Solomon," said his wife, cutting the bread and butter.
"Well, such boys as them." "Ah!" said Mrs Solomon.

"That's better." That seemed a long tea-time, and it appeared to be longer still before I could get away, for Mr Solomon had a lot of things to ask me about the grape-house and pit.

I kept glancing at the wall where the key hung on a nail, and though another time I might easily have taken it, on this particular occasion it seemed as if I could not get near the place unobserved.
At last my time came; Mrs Solomon had gone into the back kitchen, and Mr Solomon to his desk in the parlour.

I did not lose a moment, but, snatching the key from the nail, I slipped it in my pocket, caught my cap from the peg, and slipped out.
I was not going to do any wicked act, but somehow I felt as if all this was very wrong, and I found myself running along the grass borders, leaping over the gravel paths, so that my footsteps should not be heard, and in this way I reached the tool-house, where, quite at home in the darkness, and making no more noise than jingling a hanging spade against the bricks, I reached up on to the corner shelf and found my lantern and matches.
There was the little lamp inside already trimmed, and I soon had it alight and darkened by the shade, slipped it in my pocket, and then started down the long green walk by the big wall where the espaliers were trained, and the wall was covered with big pear-trees.
"I feel just like a robber," I said to myself as I stole along to find Ike and turn him out.
Then I stopped short, for there was a scrambling noise on one side.
"He is awake and trying to get over the wall," I said to myself, and setting down my lantern by one of the big trees, I went forward towards the great pear-tree, whose branches would make a ladder right to the top.
It was very dark, and the great wall made it seem blacker as I stole on over the soft green path meaning to make sure that Ike had gone over quite safely, and then go to my moth-hunting.
"It's as well not to speak to him," I thought.
Then I stopped again, for if it was Ike he was either talking to himself or had some one whispering to him.
"It can't be Ike," I thought, for after the whispering some one jumped down on the soft bed, and then some one else followed--_crash_.
There was a scuffle here, and some one uttered an ejaculation of pain as if he had hurt himself in jumping, while the other laughed, and then they whispered together.
It was not Ike going away then, but two people come over the wall to get at the great choice pears that were growing on my left.
"What a shame," I thought; and as I recalled a similar occurrence at Old Brownsmith's I wished that Shock were with me to help protect Sir Francis' choice fruit.
I ought to have slipped off back and told Mr Solomon, who would have made the gardener come from the lower cottage; but I did not think of that; I only listened and heard one of the thieves whisper to the other: "Get up; you aren't hurt.

Come along." Then there was a rustling as they forced their way among the bushes, and went bang up against an espalier.