But a bitter disappointment was in store for Tudor, and when the usual moment came for prayers in the chapel before breakfast, lo and behold, Dr. Dunston sailed in with a pair of glasses perched on his nose in the customary place! We could hardly believe our eyes; then we quickly perceived that Dunston evidently kept a reserve pair of glasses for fear of accidents. And the accident had happened, and he had fallen back upon the reserve pair, no doubt in triumph.
Well, Tudor said it was gall and wormwood to be done like that, and even thought of stealing the second pair of glasses; but then a strange and sudden thing overtook Tudor, and the very next Sunday a man came to preach at the chapel service for a good cause; and the good cause was a Medical Drug Fund for natives in the wilds of Africa. These natives become Christians under steady pressure, and after that always seem to be in need of drugs, especially quinine; and Tudor, who, owing to his lungs and one thing and another, had a good experience of drugs, was deeply interested, and gave sixpence to the Medical Drug Fund, and showed a strong inclination to become a collector for the Medical Drug Missionary. I had often read of sermons altering a person's ideas, and making him or her inclined to be different from that moment onwards, but I never saw it actually happen in real life before. Yet, in the case of Tudor, that Medical Drug sermon, and the stirring anecdotes of the savage tribes, tamed into well-behaved invalids by the Missionary, had a wonderful effect upon him, and it took the strange form of making him rather down-hearted about Dr. Dunston's glasses. Nothing had been said when they disappeared, and no fuss was made at all; and I advised him just to take them back quietly, when a chance presented itself, and slip them under some papers on the Doctor's desk, and leave the rest to time.
I said:
"You'd better do it now, while this feeling about being a collector for the Missionary is on you. It will soon pass off, and then you won't want to give them back."
He said:
"To show you how I did feel before hearing the Drug Missionary, Pratt, I may tell you I had an idea of taking the glasses home next holidays, and buying a new glazier's diamond and writing on the glasses the bitter words, 'THOU SHALT NOT STEAL,' and then returning them to his desk next term. But there are two very good reasons why I shall not do that. One is this strong pro-missionary feeling in me, and the other is that, if I did, Dunston would guess to a dead certainty who had done it, knowing only too well what I can do in the matter of writing on glass."
"He would," I told Tudor. "So the sooner you put them back unharmed, the better."
"I shall," said Tudor, "and I'm going to return them in a very peculiar way. I am going to hide them in a certain place, and then I am going to write an anonymous letter to Dunston, telling him they are in that place."
Well, I thought nothing of this idea.
I said: