"Roberto will have to tell. I like him, and he was very brave to-night. But I do not believe the boy is a thief himself, and he would be better if he entirely left his thieving relatives."
"Maybe he'll run away," suggested Helen.
But Roberto would have been obliged to start very early that next morning to have run away. Ruth Fielding was the first person up in the school, and she was standing outside Tony's door, when the little Irishman first appeared.
"Helen Cameron wants you to take this telegram down to the office at once, Tony," she said. "Mrs. Tellingham knows about it. We are in a dreadful hurry. Is Roberto inside?"
"Sure he is, Miss——"
"You take the message; don't let Roberto see it, and you keep your eye on that boy to-day, until Mr. Cameron arrives. He'll want to see him."
"Now, don't be tellin' me th' bye has been inter mischief?" cried the warm-hearted Irishman.
"Not much. Only he's suddenly recovered the use of his tongue, Tony, and Mr. Cameron wants to talk with him."
"Gracious powers!" murmured Tony. "Recovered his spache, has he? The saints be praised!"
He obeyed Ruth, however, in each particular. If Roberto had it in his mind to run away, he had no chance to do so that day. Tony watched him sharply, and in the evening Mr. Cameron arrived at Briarwood Hall.