“I can’t imagine.”
“Have you told Dave about it?”
“No; I went down to his room when I discovered it, but he was out.”
“Well, he was probably in here with his theme some time in the last two or three days when neither of us was in and decided he didn’t like the last page of it. So he probably just chucked it into my waste-basket and went home and wrote another last page.”
“I suppose that might have been it,” said Richard doubtfully.
“There’s no other way of accounting for it that I can see,” said Lester. “And I tell you, Dick, if I were you I wouldn’t go to Dave about this thing. Professor Worthington’s given him a week’s extension to make up the theme, and the less he thinks about the old one the better job he’ll do on the new. He’s bothered himself almost distracted over what happened to that theme, and we want to get his mind off it completely. Let’s see the thing, anyway.”
Richard gave Lester the paper, and Lester scrutinized it thoughtfully. “Of course,” he said, “that’s just what happened. It’s the last page; he wanted for some reason to rewrite it and so he just chucked it away wherever he happened to be. Let’s chuck it back into the waste-basket and not bother him about it. Since when have you taken to scavenging in waste-baskets, Dick?”
“Well,” said Richard slowly, “I didn’t find what I wanted. So I guess I won’t do it again.”