“Peck, I have come to ask you about your absence from town on Saturday,” he began.
Duncan threw a look of dismay at his chum. “My absence from town!” he exclaimed, striving to appear wholly surprised, yet conscious of a traitorous blush suffusing his cheeks and a well-nigh irresistible inclination to avoid the instructor’s stern eye.
“Yes, from town,” repeated Mr. Alsop, with slow and distinct emphasis.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said Duncan.
It would have been an interesting problem for a mediæval casuist to determine the moral character of this statement; whether a black lie, a white lie, or no lie at all. Duncan used it merely as a means of drawing the teacher out. He suspected that he knew only too well what the instructor meant. Yet, as a fact, he knew nothing. Mr. Alsop recognized it at once as the first of the expected chain of falsehoods, and sharpened his wits to detect its successor.
“Where were you on Saturday afternoon?”
“Knocking around,” answered Peck, vaguely, sure now that he saw Mr. Alsop’s meaning, and wondering how he had been found out.
“Were you out of town?”
Duncan was silent.
“Where were you in the evening?” went on the inquisitor, triumphantly. The weak line of defence was already breaking.