“Yes, sir.”
“So much the worse for you, then. The faculty will consider the case on Tuesday evening. I will give you until that time to come to your senses.”
CHAPTER XIX
UP THE WRONG TREE
Mr. Alsop closed the door of Number 7 behind him, more than ever convinced that he had caught an experienced and clever offender. Peck’s confusion when suddenly taxed with an absence from town which he had supposed totally unknown, his theatrical attempt to bluff, his apparent conflict in mind over the wisdom of confessing and throwing himself on Mr. Alsop’s mercy, his pains to keep an over-loyal room-mate from committing himself to a falsehood, his final decision to abide by the original denial—all this was the natural behavior of a conscious culprit. The unfortunate boy had been given an opportunity to confess and gain a possible mitigation of penalty. The instructor’s conscience was clear.
Inside Number 7 Duncan was dancing in transports of merriment. “Did you ever hear anything like it!” he cried. “Oh, but it’s great! If some fool doesn’t butt in and spoil it all before to-morrow night!”
“You’re a fool yourself!” said Sam, in disgust. “Why didn’t you let me tell him the facts? I could have cleared you.”
“Because I didn’t want to be cleared,” declared Duncan, joyfully; “because this is the chance of a lifetime to get back at him for all his spying at keyholes and sneaking round. If you’d blurted out everything you wanted to say, you might have made him doubt, and I don’t want him to doubt.”
“Do you want to be fired for what you didn’t do?” demanded Sam. “You weren’t in Boston. You were here.”
“I know I was here, but he doesn’t. He’ll bring it up before the faculty—and then!—”