"Please, sir, I never thought about it's being a robbery when I took them."
"You took them! You robbed my pantry, Stewart?"
"It wasn't a robbery, sir—it was only a lark. I did not want the pies to eat; it was just for the fun."
"And what did you do with them?" asked the governor, sternly.
"Well, sir, Mr. Swain helped us get them away, although he didn't know it;" and then bit by bit it all came out. I tried to screen Collins and the rest, but somehow there was no getting over the governor's close questions, and he sent for them, and gave us all a lecture and then a long imposition. I hate impositions and all sorts of grind, but I didn't mind that so much, for after all the governor didn't give it us so stiff as he might—as I thought he would; and that poor girl is not to lose her place after all.
I thought when the impositions were got over there would be an end of the affair; but it seems I shall for ever be nagged about it—called a rat, a sneak, a coward. Tom says I need not have been in such a hurry to run off to the governor—that if the police had come they would not have found the empty dishes in her box, and so she would not have lost her place, and we could still have kept our secret.
Chandos, too, talks something like the governor. According to them it was an actual robbery, although I did it in fun. The result was the same, they say, and it might have led to disastrous consequences if I had not told the whole truth about it; and then he went on to say it was not keeping the promise I had made when Frank was so ill.
"Well, how in the world is a fellow to keep straight for ever?" I said.
"What pleasure did you get out of this?"
"None at all, as it happened, and it's the last pantry I'll rob; but still—" and there I stopped.