“I don’t know,” said Bags.
“Think then.”
Bags threw his sucked orange, the third of them, into the waste-paper basket.
“Because I thought you’d just whack me, and there wouldn’t be any more bother!” he said.
Maddox again looked sympathetic.
“Just to save Blaize a whacking?” he asked.
Bags suddenly took courage. Maddox was such a ripper, he would understand.
“No, not altogether,” he said. “But I felt I’d sooner let you think it was mine than his. He’s so awfully proud of you. I didn’t want you to know that . . . oh, blast it all,” he added desperately.
Maddox kicked the door shut.
“You didn’t want me to know he cribbed,” he said, “because then I shouldn’t think him such an awfully decent chap?”