"I tell you that it can be done. What danger is there, if we are only careful not to make a noise? What a miserable coward you are, Dobson!"  
So said Horace Elgert. He and Dobson were together, and morning school was over. They had met that Elgert might unfold his plan for preventing Ralph Rexworth having any chance of gaining the Newlet medal, and also for getting him into disgrace by making it appear that he had been cribbing; and apparently Dobson did not much like the plan, and had been making objections which had called forth Elgert's angry remonstrance.
 
"What danger can there be?" The question came again, when Dobson did not reply. "Why, you have risked more than that when we have left the house at night! You have thought that a lark. And now we have only to go to the Head's desk, and then sit in the class-room for an hour or so."
 
"It will be awfully cold there," shivered Dobson.[Pg 250] "And just think—stopping for two hours, and the chance all the time that some one will come!"
 
"Rubbish! If it is cold, put on your overcoat. You don't call it cold when you stand for longer than that keeping goal, with an east wind blowing. It is no use trying to make objections. I am determined to try it, and you have just got to help me."
 
"I don't see how we can do it," grumbled Dobson. "I think we had better leave him alone. After all, it don't matter to us if he gets the medal."
 
"Everything matters that advances him. Now, look here. After the exam. is over, all the papers are taken to the Head, and he puts them in his desk, and sends them to the examiners in the morning. We know that much."
 
"Yes," assented Dobson.
 
"Very well. Now, the catch of the Head's roller desk is broken. I heard him say yesterday that he had forgotten to send for a man to repair it. There the papers will be, with nothing to prevent us from getting hold of Rexworth's. That is easy enough. We wait till the place is quiet, and then go to the Head's class-room and take what we want. Then we go to our own class-room, and have our bicycle lamps to give us light. You know that I can write like Rexworth; and even if I did not, no one will know. The Head does not examine the papers himself, and the chap he sends them to would not know the difference, even if you scrawled the answers."
 
[Pg 251]
 
"But what do you want me for?" objected Dobson. "We can't both write."
 
"You sneak! You want me to do it all. Why, to keep me company, and to be in it as well as me. Besides, I shall want you to read me some answers from Grimwade. I have a copy; and I don't mean only to write wrong answers to some questions, but to put in extracts, so that it will look as if he had been using a crib——"
 
"It will take an awful long time! He takes all day over the papers."
 
"Yes; but he has got to think of the answers, and we shall not have to do anything of the kind. We can copy a lot of what he has written—you reading and I writing. Then we just take our set of papers back and put them with the others, and we destroy his, and who is to know a thing about it?"
 
"I don't like it," protested Dobson. "I know that we shall get caught one of these days, and then we shall be expelled, and it will be all your fault."
 
"Then you have just got to like it!" retorted Elgert; and Dobson burst out furiously—
 
"Oh, have I? Think I am going to be ordered about by you, Horace Elgert! Why have I got to like it, pray?"
 
"Because you changed that five-pound note!"
 
"But you gave it to me," retorted Dobson, changing colour, and falling back upon his old plea; and Elgert laughed.
 
[Pg 252]
 
"You prove that, if you can. You are the only one implicated in it."
 
"You are a jolly mean sneak!" cried his companion; and again Elgert laughed, this time rather menacingly.
 
"I wouldn't talk in that way if I were you, Dobson," he said. "It is a bit foolish to quarrel with me. Now, don't be silly, but say that you agree."
 
"I suppose I must," was the sulky reply; "but I tell you I think it risky. Besides, all that we have yet done has not harmed Rexworth; but it has jolly well hurt us."
 
"We will be more successful this time. But let us clear off, for that little sneak Charlton is watching us, and he may get suspicious if he sees us talking together."
 
"Punch his head!" said Dobson. He was brave enough when it came to ill-treating boys weaker than himself. "He is alone; punch his head!"
 
"No. You forget we should have Warren and all his gang down on us, and perhaps Kesterway taking the matter to the Head. Let him go for the time. We will have him over his father yet, and that will be better than giving him a licking."
 
It was quite true that Charlton had seen the two together, and he was indeed wondering what mischief they were plotting. Ralph was still a prisoner over his examination papers, for until they were done he was not allowed to leave the class-room; and Warren[Pg 253] was at the moment away, so that Charlton was alone.
 
He was very anxious for Ralph's success, and perhaps that very anxiety made him suspicious of the two boys who were such bitter enemies of his chum. At any rate, Charlton determined to keep a very sharp eye upon the movements of Elgert and Dobson, though he was quite ignorant of any way in which they could harm Ralph.
 
But, in spite of his watching, nothing occurred. The dinner-hour passed and afternoon school began, and all went smoothly; and Charlton managed to retrieve the loss which his anxiety had brought to him in the morning. And then, when the bell rang, and the boys filed out, free to do as they liked, until teatime, there Ralph joined them, a trifle tired, it is true, but very hopeful, for he felt confident that he had answered every question that had been given to him without making a huge number of mistakes.
 
A general rush of Fourth Form boys occurred, and he was surrounded by a throng of eager questioners.
 
"How did you get on, Rexworth? Was it very stiff? Could you manage ............