“But the blotting-paper—suppose he knows that!”
There was a laugh all round at this, “as if Harrison knew everyone’s blotting-paper!”
“Yes, but Harry used to write his name all over his—see—and draw Union Jacks on it.”
“If he did, the date is not there. Do you think the ink is going to say March 2nd? Why should not July have done it last half?”
“July would have told if he had,” said Larkins. “That’s no go.”
“Ay! That’s the way—the Mays are all like girls—can’t keep a secret—not one of them. There, I’ve done more for you than ever one of them would have done—own it—and he strode up to Tom, and grasped his wrists, to force the confession from him.”
“But—but he’ll ask when he finds it out—”
“Let him. We know nothing about it. Don’t be coming the good boy over me like your brothers. That won’t do—I know whose eyes are not too short-sighted to read upside down.”
Tom shrank and looked abject, clinging to the hope that Mr. Harrison would not open the book for weeks, months, or years.
But the next morning his heart died within him, when he beheld the unfortunate piece of blotting-paper, displayed by Mr. Harrison, with the inquiry whether any one knew to whom it belonged, and what made it worse was, that his sight would not reach far enough to assure him whether Harry’s name was on it, and he dreaded that Norman or Hector Ernescliffe should recognise the nautical designs. However, both let it pass, and no one through the whole school attempted to identify it. One danger was past, but the next minute Mr. Harrison opened his Smith’s ‘Antiquities’ at the page where stood the black witness. Tom gazed round in despair, he could not see his brother’s face, but Edward Anderson, from the second form, returned him a glance of contemptuous encouragement.