"Please don't ask us that. We'll tell you anything about ourselves, but we can't give him away."
"Wouldn't think much of you if you did. No need of it anyhow. I know who it was."
"He must have told you then, for we haven't told anybody."
"Do you remember that while you were cooking that rooster out in my woods, Steve Daly, your companion, said he heard somebody in the bushes and you said it was only a dog?"
"Yes, I remember it. I did say that."
"Well, I was that dog!"
"And you never told on us?" asked Dick. "Then you've been mighty kind and I'm ashamed to look you in the face."
"Never be ashamed to look anyone in the face, my boy. It isn't good to take even a little thing that doesn't belong to you, but that won't happen again to you. But weren't you playing truant when you had that tough supper in my woods? Doesn't your conscience trouble you at all about that?"
"Not a bit," said Dick; "that wasn't mean."
It was fortunate for Dick's peace of mind that his conscience wasn't troubled by mischief, for he was never out of it and was at the root of about all the purely mischievous happenings at the school.