“I don’t mind telling you. I’d lock it up and no one would ever see it. But I’d own you, do you understand? I’m going to be the most popular man at the Academy; I’m going to be class president and cut a wide swathe here. Now you’d help me and I’ll need help. That’s all you’ll have to do. And there’ll be a lot of money and good times in it for you. Come, write me that confession. You’ll never hear of it again; you’ll simply know I’m your boss and you’ll have to do what I tell you.”
The hapless young candidate immediately brightened up and taking pen and paper rapidly wrote a few lines. Short read what he had written, and then, in a satisfied manner, said, “That’s sensible. You’ll never regret it.”
The young man then said, “Short, here’s your two hundred. Thank you so much for your goodness to me; but I can’t help taking things, I really can’t; I’m what they call a kleptomaniac.”
“Oh, keep the two hundred,” said Short, folding up the paper the young man had written, and putting it in his pocket. “Now see here, I can’t afford to have my right-hand man get caught stealing and you surely will be if you keep it up. Whenever the feeling comes over you again come to me and I’ll give you fifty or so. Now skip out. I’ve some private matters I want to talk over with my friend here.”
The young candidate returned the two hundred dollars to his pocket and left the room in an apparently happy frame of mind. With him the crime of a thing was not in the guilty act but in the publicity and punishment following detection.
“You’ve got that fellow good and hard,” remarked the other man who had remained in the room with them.
“Yes, and he’ll stay got,” returned Short, drily. “Well, what have you to report? Are you going to get the math exam for me?”
“You bet, we’ll have it to-night sure thing. We’ve got it located, have a complete plan of the building, and Sunny Jim, the greatest safe cracker in the world, will get it to-night. Nothing less than a burglar-proof time-lock could keep him out. He’ll get here to-night on the six o’clock train and you’ll have a copy of your mathematical examination before this time to-morrow, and no one will ever be the wiser unless you choose to tell. Sunny Jim will not know who it’s for and he’ll lock up everything behind him when he leaves. He’ll not leave a trace behind him and no one will suspect the building has been entered.”
“Good. I’ll depend upon you. I can pass in the other subjects, and will in mathematics if I get hold of the examination several days ahead of time. That’s all for the present.”
The examinations were to begin on Monday, the first of June. Ralph Osborn felt well prepared and confident, yet he dreaded the ordeal and longed for it to be over.