“I say,” said Trimble. “I wonder if Tempest—”
Here he pulled up, but a muffled whistle of dismay took up his meaning.
“If he did, he must have found it out by himself. I never said a word to him,” said I.
“You were bound to make a mess of it,” said Coxhead. “Why ever couldn’t you stick the thing where nobody could find it?”
“So I did; it was leaning up against the cellar wall; no one could possibly get at it.”
“Why not? the area door’s open.”
“No, it ain’t. I locked it, and hid the key,” said I, triumphantly, “for fear of accident, under the scraper.”
“Good old Sarah—that’s lucky. But what about the grating in the gymnasium floor? Couldn’t you twig it through that?”
“Not unless you were looking for it. And if you could, you couldn’t get at it.”
“Well,” said Trimble, rather brutally, “I hope it’s all right, for your sake. Fellows who keep guys must take the consequences. It would have been much safer if you’d kept it under your bed.”