“Guile,” said Clowes, “pure guile. If I were you, I should escape while I could. Try Callao. There’s no extradition there.
’On no petition
Is extradition
Allowed in Callao.’
Either of you chaps coming over to school?”
VIII
O’HARA ON THE TRACK
Tuesday mornings at Wrykyn were devoted—up to the quarter to eleven interval—to the study of mathematics. That is to say, instead of going to their form-rooms, the various forms visited the out-of-the-way nooks and dens at the top of the buildings where the mathematical masters were wont to lurk, and spent a pleasant two hours there playing round games or reading fiction under the desk. Mathematics being one of the few branches of school learning which are of any use in after life, nobody ever dreamed of doing any work in that direction, least of all O’Hara. It was a theory of O’Hara’s that he came to school to enjoy himself. To have done any work during a mathematics lesson would have struck him as a positive waste of time, especially as he was in Mr Banks’ class. Mr Banks was a master who simply cried out to be ragged. Everything he did and said seemed to invite the members of his class to amuse themselves, and they amused themselves accordingly. One of the advantages of being under him was that it was possible to predict to a nicety the moment when one would be sent out of the room. This was found very convenient.
O’Hara’s ally, Moriarty, was accustomed to take his mathematics with Mr Morgan, whose room was directly opposite Mr Banks’. With Mr Morgan it was not quite so easy to date one’s expulsion from the room under ordinary circumstances, and in the normal wear and tear of the morning’s work, but there was one particular action which could always be relied upon to produce the desired result.
In one corner of the room stood a gigantic globe. The problem—how did it get into the room?—was one that had exercised the minds of many generations of Wrykinians. It was much too big to have come through the door. Some thought that the block had been built round it, others that it had been placed in the room in infancy, and had since grown. To refer the question to Mr Morgan would, in six cases out of ten, mean instant departure from the room. But to make the event certain, it was necessary to grasp the globe firmly and spin it round on its axis. That always proved successful. Mr Morgan would dash down from his dais, address the offender in spirited terms, and give him his marching orders at once and without further trouble.
Moriarty had arranged with O’Hara to set the globe rolling at ten sharp on this particular morning. O’Hara would then so arrange matters with Mr Banks that they could meet in the passage at that hour, when O’Hara wished to impart to his friend his information concerning the League.
O’Hara promised to be at the trysting-place at the hour mentioned.