“I lugged at the handle for hours. But you can go and see for yourself if you like.”
Harvey went, and, waiting till the coast was clear, attached himself to the handle with a prehensile grasp, and put his back into one strenuous tug. It was even as Renford had said. The door was locked beyond possibility of doubt.
Renford and he went over to school that morning with long faces and a general air of acute depression. It was perhaps fortunate for their purpose that they did, for had their appearance been normal it might not have attracted O’Hara’s attention. As it was, the Irishman, meeting them on the junior gravel, stopped and asked them what was wrong. Since the adventure in the vault, he had felt an interest in Renford and Harvey.
The two told their story in alternate sentences like the Strophe and Antistrophe of a Greek chorus. ("Steichomuthics,” your Greek scholar calls it, I fancy. Ha, yes! Just so.)
“So ye can’t get in because they’ve locked the door, an’ ye don’t know what to do about it?” said O’Hara, at the conclusion of the narrative.
Renford and Harvey informed him in chorus that that was the state of the game up to present date.
“An’ ye want me to get them out for you?”
Neither had dared to hope that he would go so far as this. What they had looked for had been at the most a few thoughtful words of advice. That such a master-strategist as O’Hara should take up their cause was an unexampled piece of good luck.
“If you only would,” said Harvey.
“We should be most awfully obliged,” said Renford.