"That's the very idea," assented Simpson.
"Don't lisp a word of what you have told me to anyone else," said Gus. "We mustn't let it get out."
"Ah! Trust me for that. Do you think I am a greenhorn?"
Gus, feeling as if a heavy weight had been removed from his shoulders, walked off snapping his fingers, and Simpson stood congratulating himself on his shrewdness—he never thought to give Scotty any credit for it—when, happening to cast his eye toward the academy, he saw a sight that filled him with great consternation.
A crowd of students were coming from the direction of the carpenter's shop, and the foremost of them, Claxton by name, who had acted as spokesman of the group he had met a short time before, carried over his shoulder the identical oar which had been stolen from the closet and so carefully hidden in the lumber-pile. Simpson knew it the instant he put his eyes on it. His under jaw dropped down, and for a moment or two he stood staring at Claxton as if he could hardly make up his mind whether he was awake or dreaming. Then it flashed upon him again that he had done just what Scotty predicted he would do—revealed his complicity in an affair which, should it reach the ears of the faculty, would cause his expulsion from the academy.
"Simp," said an angry voice close at his elbow.
The culprit turned and found Scotty at his side.
"Simp, look there!" said the latter, pointing toward the academy door through which Claxton was just disappearing with the oar. "What did I tell you? You're not a greenhorn, are you?"
"Oh, now, Scotty, you just want to clear out," exclaimed Simpson, who, when taken to task either by the professors or the students, always fell back on the line of defense he had suggested to Gus Layton. "I would like to know why you fellows always pounce upon me when anything goes wrong about the academy?"
"Simply because you know you are the guilty one, that's why. What induced you to tell Claxton where that oar was hidden?"