A pause.—Then the inexorable recitation bell broke in upon them. “How mournful that bell sounds when you haven’t your lesson,” groaned Tommy, as he picked up his book and started for the French recitation. “It’s like the thing they ring at funerals. Another flunk for me to-day! I’ll be dropped by the end of the term, if I don’t get this business off my nerves.”
“Come in after supper, Tommy,” shouted Dick at the door, “and we’ll talk it over with Varrell. His head is longer than mine, and he may have something to suggest.”
That evening the three gathered before the depleted bookshelves in Tompkins’s room in solemn conclave. All agreed that to write to Mr. Tompkins would be equivalent to carrying the facts to the Principal.
“Can’t you write to your mother?” suggested Melvin.
“That would be more dangerous still,” answered Tompkins, dolefully. “She’d be sure I’d gone to the bad.”
“Haven’t you a brother or an uncle or a cousin that you could try?” asked Wrenn. “I’ve money enough myself. I could furnish you what you want as easily as can be, but I have to give an account of all I spend, and of course I can’t lie about it.”
“There’s Uncle George in Chicago,” said Tompkins, brightening. “I’d thought of him, but he’s a bit risky, too. He’d help me quick enough, but I don’t know what else he might do.”
“That’s the way out,” said Varrell, authoritatively. “You’ve got to take some risk. Just tell him the whole story frankly, and explain why you don’t want to write to your father, and I think he’ll be square with you; uncles usually are pretty generously disposed. In the meantime don’t sell any more books. I’ll lend you all you need.”
To this course the council agreed. Tompkins wrote the letter and waited six miserable days for a reply, which arrived by the last mail of a certain Saturday early in March. The date was important to Tompkins, for it was the day which brought relief from anxiety to a very worried and unhappy boy. There was a check in the letter, drawn for a larger amount than he had requested; there was also some strong, sensible advice; and finally there was a pledge to be signed and returned before the check was cashed, binding Master Tompkins not to play again during the course of his education. This the boy signed with eagerness, having already of his own accord made up his mind to this very course. With the pledge deposited in the post-office, and the check safe in his pocket-book ready to be cashed on Monday morning, with a feeling of relief warming his heart as the bright hearth-fire drives the chill from weary bones, Tommy went to bed that night as nearly serious and grateful as he had ever been in his life.
For another reason the date was important. On the night of this Saturday, or somewhere between the hours of six P.M. on Saturday and two P.M. on Sunday, the registrar’s safe in the basement of Sibley was broken into and plundered.