Billy Bunter’s Bodyguard

Over a mile lay between Greyfriars and the theatre at Courtfield, and a mile to William George Bunter is a mile too far where walking is concerned. True, he had wangled a free theatre ticket from Smithy, but the main attraction of the outing lay in the promised “spread” in the bun-shop afterwards. His ambulation rolled to an exhausted halt, and the matinee at the Theatre Royal gave way to the temptation of a quiet rest. But he soon moved with an unprecedented speed, which carried him, not to Courtfield, but into the comparative safety of the wood, and unbelievably, for Bunter up a tree. Someone was after him, or so he thought. But what he saw from his hideout convinced him even more that it was advisable to stay there for a long time, bun-shop or no bun-shop.

This was only the first of a whole series of quite remarkable events which, to the Owl of the Remove, were disconcerting and even alarming, though his plea for a bodyguard was received with no more sympathy and no less derision from the other Removites than was any other of the many familiar Bunter fantasies until the fattest figure in Greyfriars School disappeared. Even an unscrupulous tuck-raider merits help when truly in trouble, so ‘Sherlock’ Smithy and the Famous Five concentrated their power to find him, and their efforts lead to some startling discoveries.