down into the mire, so to speak, and the question now arose, What could I do to atone?
Obviously, the first move must be to get in touch with Sippy and see if he had any last messages, and whatnot.
I pushed about a bit, making inquiries, and presently found myself in a little dark room with whitewashed walls and a wooden bench. Sippy was sitting on the bench with his head in his hands.
“How are you, old lad?” I asked in a hushed, bedside voice.
“I’m a ruined man,” said Sippy, looking like a poached egg.
“Oh, come,” I said, “it’s not so bad as all that. I mean to say, you had the swift intelligence to give a false name. There won’t be anything about you in the papers.”
“I’m not worrying about the papers. What’s bothering me is, How can I go and spend three weeks with the Pringles, starting today, when I’ve got to sit in a prison cell with a ball and chain on my ankle?”
“But you said you didn’t want to go.”
“It isn’t a question of wanting, fathead. I’ve got to go. If I don’t, my aunt will find out where I am. And if she finds out that I am doing thirty days without the option in the lowest dungeon beneath the castle moat—well, where shall I get off?”
I saw his point.
“This is not a