He thrust his face out as he spoke, in his usual disagreeable way, thinking he had played a clever trick on the other.
“You’re wrong there. Although you’ve destroyed that little print you so kindly made me you can’t very well get rid of the original so easily,” said Frank, pointing down at the left hand of the other.
And Lef fell back in sheer dismay. He had forgotten that it was the mark of his thumb to which Frank referred.
“The professor could easily insist upon you convicting yourself by stamping another thumb-print alongside this one. He asked me if I wanted to have every fellow in Columbia make his mark, so that the right one could be found; and I told him I preferred going about it in my own way.”
“Then—he knows?” asked Lef, in new alarm.
“About the imprint on the paper, yes. He admitted that it was a possible way for identifying the one who had taken it out of his desk,” was Frank’s answer.
“And you’ve got to tell him then?” with a groan, and a sinking of his head on his chest.
“No, he said he’d leave that to me entirely; but that, if I succeeded, and gave him the proof he’d do the rest!”
Like all cowards caught in their own toils, Lef was not beneath playing upon his emotions in order to secure immunity. To the surprise of Frank the other suddenly grasped his hand and there seemed to be a look of sincere agony on the face that was thrust close to his.
“Then I hope you’ll be above giving me away, Frank. I’ve been a cur. I admit it, and don’t deserve to be let down easy; but I’d hate to be expelled from school, because, you know, my mother has set her heart on my graduating, and going to college. It would break her all up. I haven’t been what I ought to be, but this is going to be a lesson to me, sure it is!”