f now or never
so far as going to Scotland Yard is concerned."

"Then it's never!"

"I must put it plainly to you. It's not too late to do whatever you
decide, but you must decide now. I would still go with you to Scotland
Yard, and the chances are that they would still accept the true story of
to-day. I have told you what I believe to be the worst that can happen to
you; it may be that rather more may happen to me for harbouring you all
day as I have done. I hope not, but I took the law into my own hands, and
I am prepared to abide by the law if you so decide this minute."

"I have decided."

"Mind you, it would mean putting yourself unreservedly in my hands, at any
rate for the present," said Baumgartner, impressively. "Better come to
Scotland Yard this minute than go back to school and blab about the whole
thing there!"

"I shouldn't do that."

"I'm not so sure," replied the acute doctor. "I believe I know you better
than you know yourself; one learns more of a person in an hour like this
than in a whole humdrum lifetime. I believe you would find it very
difficult not to tell somebody."

Pocket admitted it with a natural outburst of his leading quality. In
truth no previous act or word of Baumgartner's had inspired such
confidence as this unerring piece of insight. It seemed to the boy a
perfect miracle of discernment. He was not old enough to know that what
he would have done, in his weakness, most grown-up men and women of his
temperament would have done in theirs.

"Remember," resumed the doctor, "you would have the whole of to-day to
account for; it's not as though you wouldn't have some very awkward
questions to answer the moment you got back to school."

And again the lad marvelled at this intuition into public-school
conditions on the part of one who could have no first-hand knowledge of
those insular institutions. But this fresh display of understanding only
confirmed him in his resolve.

"I trust you, sir," said he; "haven't you done enough for me to make me?
I put myself, as you say, absolutely in your hands; and I'm grateful to
you for all you've done and whatever you mean to do!"

"Even though it comes to hiding with us here in London?"

"No matter what it comes to," cried Pocket, strangely exalted now, "so
long as my people never know!"

"They may think you dead." He thought of saying that he wished he was;
but it would not have been true; even then it would have been a lie, a