flashed across his mind certain reasons against this move. At present
Farnie's attitude towards him was unpleasantly independent. He made him
understand that he went about with him from choice, and that there was
to be nothing of the patron and dependant about their alliance. If he
were to lend him the two pounds now, things would alter. And to have
got a complete hold over Master Reginald Farnie, Monk would have paid
more than two pounds. Farnie had the intelligence to carry through
anything, however risky, and there were many things which Monk would
have liked to do, but, owing to the risks involved, shirked doing for
himself. Besides, he happened to be in funds just now.

'Well, look here, old chap,' he said, 'let's have strict business
between friends. If you'll pay me back four quid at the end of term,
you shall have the two pounds. How does that strike you?'

It struck Farnie, as it would have struck most people, that if this was
Monk's idea of strict business, there were the makings of no ordinary
financier in him. But to get his two pounds he would have agreed to
anything. And the end of term seemed a long way off.

The awkward part of the billiard-playing episode was that the
punishment for it, if detected, was not expulsion, but flogging. And
Farnie resembled the lady in _The Ingoldsby Legends_ who 'didn't
mind death, but who couldn't stand pinching'. He didn't mind
expulsion--he was used to it, but he could _not_ stand flogging.

'That'll be all right,' he said. And the money changed hands.