'Let the whole thing out. No good trying to hush it up. He may let us down easy if you're honest about it.'
It relieved Lorimer to hear Pringle talk about 'us'. It meant that he was not to be left to bear the assault alone. Which, considering that the whole trouble was, strictly speaking, Pringle's fault, was only just.
'But how am I to explain? I can't reel off a long yarn all about how you did it all, and so on. It would be too low.'
'I know,' said Pringle, 'I've got it. Look here, on your way to the Old Man's room you pass the Remove door. Well, when you pass, drop some money. I'll be certain to hear it, as I sit next the door. And then I'll ask to leave the room, and we'll go up together.'
'Good man, Pringle, you're a genius. Thanks, awfully.'
But as it happened, this crafty scheme was not found necessary. The blow did not fall till after lock-up.
Lorimer being in the Headmaster's House, it was possible to interview him without the fuss and advertisement inseparable from a 'sending for during school'. Just as he was beginning his night-work, the butler came with a message that he was wanted in the Headmaster's part of the House.
'It was only Mr Lorimer as the master wished to see,' said the butler, as Pringle rose to accompany his companion in crime.
'That's all right,' said Pringle, 'the Headmaster's always glad to see me. I've got a standing invitation. He'll understand.'
At first, when he saw two where he had only sent for one, the Headmaster did not understand at all, and said so. He had prepared to annihilate Lorimer hip and thigh, for he was now convinced that his blank astonishment at the mention of The Dark Horse during their previous interview had been, in the words of the bard, a mere veneer, a wile of guile. Since the morning he had seen Mr Lawrie again, and had with his own eyes compared the two poems, the printed and the written, the author by special request having hunted up a copy of that valuable work, The Dark Horse, from the depths of a cupboard in his rooms.