“No, sir. I got my dinner at McLane’s at about five.”
“And before five?”
Peck hesitated, looked at his room-mate, then out the window, then at his room-mate again, and at last into Dr. Leighton’s face.
“I’d rather not tell you; that is, officially. I’ll tell you personally, if you like. I didn’t do anything bad.”
“Personally then, if it must be,” said the instructor.
“I went to Hampton Beach to see the surf.”
“What!”
“I went down on the one o’clock car and came back on it. I walked up from the power-house.”
Dr. Leighton was silent, while Duncan shifted nervously from foot to foot, and wondered wildly whether he had made the great mistake of being confidential with an untrustworthy prof. Dr. Leighton, however, understood clearly the distinction intended; he had agreed to receive Duncan’s confession, not as a member of the faculty, but as a friend of the confessor. Officially he could take no cognizance of the affair. He must speak as a friend and adviser, or not at all.
“Duncan,” he said with slow seriousness, “in going to Hampton you were leaving town without permission just as much as if you had gone to Boston, as Mr. Alsop thought you did. That Mr. Alsop treated you unfairly, or that your visit was for an innocent purpose, is no excuse whatever for the act. You broke a rule on which the school wisely insists, and the punishment for which you well knew. In that you were totally wrong.”