“Been up on the green carpet?” asked Hans. “That’s what they say, isn’t it when they send for you like that?”
“Yes,” said Hal, dejected.
“What’s the matter now? Nothing about the medal or our trip to Boston, was it?” went on Hans. But before he could answer, Hal broke down and went all to pieces. “I’m disgraced,” he almost shouted in his agony.
“Tell me what happened,” said Hans when he had quieted him down somewhat. Then Hal told him all that had taken place and what had been said, the pawnbroker’s story and everything, winding up by repeating the president’s speech which he could recite almost word for word, so forcibly had every syllable sunk into his brain.
“I’m disgraced,” he concluded.
Hans was thunderstruck. Did they connect him with it in any way? Was his name mentioned? Why didn’t they? It was preposterous. He had Hal go over different parts of the story again and again. They didn’t believe Hal guilty, yet they put him off the team for a week.
“We must clear this up,” said he, finally, when he had a little time to think. “We must clear it up within a week. How I don’t know, but it must be done. Don’t worry about being suspended for a week. No one but Hughie need know. You can fix it up with him that your foot is paining you again from Crossley’s spikes and carry your cane and limp a little. Hughie will protect you. He likes you well enough for that. At the end of the week you can get well again. We don’t need to worry about that end of it. We’ve got to go over this thing step by step and account for everything that happened to you and me from the time you left this house that day until you got back. Now let’s get busy,” and they started in on the hardest proposition they had ever tackled.
Item by item they went over the day’s happenings again and again. They started in with Hal’s leaving Mrs. Malcolm’s house on the way to the station.
“Did you walk or did you take the car? Who took your trunk! Did you talk to anybody? Whom?”
These were the kind of questions Hans fired at Hal like shots out of a gun. For once this phlegmatic young man was thoroughly aroused and excited. Whenever he asked a question that Hal couldn’t answer he would say “Think! Think!”