See here; I did take that
bank-note, of course. I wanted to see Seabrooke and Neville in a war
over it, and then I was going to put it in some place here it would
be found. I was going to throw it under Seabrooke's bed or somewhere;
but I saw his trunk standing there, and the chance was too good to be
lost. I knew he would find it there, and send it to Percy as soon as
he reached home. If it hadn't been for old Moffat it would all have
worked right."
Utter silence met this tissue of impudence, defiance, truth and
falsehood, and he saw plainly enough that he was believed to have
committed the theft of Percy's money for theft itself, pure and
simple, and that fear of detection only had induced him to make the
effort at restoration.
"I say, Neville," he continued, "you know I did not mean to keep the
money, don't you?"
But Percy only turned contemptuously away without any reply in words.
None were needed. Lewis was answered.
"I'm going to do my best not to be sent back here," said Lewis,
striving to continue his bravado, although his heart was sinking as
he began to realize more and more in what a predicament he had placed
himself. "Such a set of muffs, teachers and scholars, I never met. No
one can take a joke, or even see it."
"I think it likely your efforts will be crowned with success," said
Raymond Stewart, himself a boy of not too much principle, but who, in
common with the rest of the school, had been inexpressibly shocked
and revolted by Lewis' conduct.
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