Читать книгу Ralph Osborn, Midshipman at Annapolis. A Story of Life at the U.S. Naval Academy онлайн

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The young man then said, “Short, here’s your two hundred. Thank you so much for your goodness to me; but I can’t help taking things, I really can’t; I’m what they call a kleptomaniac.”

“Oh, keep the two hundred,” said Short, folding up the paper the young man had written, and putting it in his pocket. “Now see here, I can’t afford to have my right-hand man get caught stealing and you surely will be if you keep it up. Whenever the feeling comes over you again come to me and I’ll give you fifty or so. Now skip out. I’ve some private matters I want to talk over with my friend here.”

The young candidate returned the two hundred dollars to his pocket and left the room in an apparently happy frame of mind. With him the crime of a thing was not in the guilty act but in the publicity and punishment following detection.

“You’ve got that fellow good and hard,” remarked the other man who had remained in the room with them.

“Yes, and he’ll stay got,” returned Short, drily. “Well, what have you to report? Are you going to get the math exam for me?”