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The appeal of the Wild West is initially diminished after the incident with Father Butler and Leo Dillon, but the narrator’s hunger for adventure stories returns the moment he is liberated from the “restricting” school grounds. However, the narrator eventually finds the evening battles in the Dillon’s garden repetitive and shallow because they are merely the mimicry of adventure and not the real thing. He decides that he and his companions need to find an actual adventure, but notes that it is impossible to find adventure within the safety of one’s own home. Instead, he feels that he and his friends need to leave the neighborhood and venture further out into the world in pursuit of glory and excitement.
With summer holidays soon approaching, the narrator hatches a plan with Leo Dillon and another boy named Mahony to skip school one day and walk through Dublin to visit the ships along the wharf and the Pigeon House, Dublin’s electrical power station. Mahony’s older sister is going to write an excuse for him and Leo is supposed to tell his older brother that he is sick. The narrator then confirms the pact by collecting sixpence from Leo and Mahony. The boys are briefly deterred when Leo worries if they will run into Father Butler at the Pigeon House but Mahony quickly gets the plan back on track by claiming that Father Butler would have no reason to visit an electrical power station of all places. The three friends all laugh and shake hands and promise to meet at ten the next morning at the Canal Bridge to start their adventure.
The narrator sleeps poorly that night out of anticipation and he arrives at the Canal Bridge early the next morning after hiding his school books in the tall grass near the ash pit at the end of the garden. The narrator is the first to arrive because he lives the closest to the Canal Bridge and he entertains himself by admiring his pipeclayed shoes and drumming on the granite stones while he waits. He is very happy. Finally, the narrator notices Mahony approaching in the distance. Once he arrives, Mahony shows the narrator the catapult that he brought so that they can have some fun with the birds. The two boys realize that Leo is not coming and they decide to leave anyway, pleased to have gained an extra sixpence since Leo will not be there to use it. While the narrator and Mahony walk south through North Dublin, Mahony brandishes his catapult and chases after a group of poor girls. Two poor boys then approach and yell insults, thinking them Protestant. Resisting retribution, the boys continue until they reach the river, and there they buy some food and watch the Dublin water traffic and laborers. They cross the river in a ferryboat, buy some more food on the other side, and wander the streets until they reach an open field where they rest on a slope.
