“No, sir,” said Jeff.
“You are sure you did not pick it up, and noting what it was decided to look it over first before reporting it and returning it to me?”
“No, sir. I never saw the paper before you showed it to me this morning, sir,” said Jeff.
“All right, but the evidence is against you, Thatcher, and I must still deny you certain privileges. You will be permitted to take the final examinations. We will work out a new set of Latin questions, so as to be certain that this missing paper has not passed through more than your hands. But you must remain within bounds, be in your room at the hour I designated this morning, and you cannot take part in any athletic contests whatsoever until this case is cleared up and we know all the facts. Go to your room, boy.”
Feeling somewhat relieved, but still angry and resentful that any one should play such an ugly trick on him, Jeff returned to Carter Hall. As he crossed the campus he looked out toward the ball field where the team was at afternoon practice, and he bit his lips in disappointment. Because of the dishonesty of some one else he thought he was forbidden the privilege of practicing with the team, forbidden the privilege of playing in the remaining games and especially the Lawrencetown game nest week. That would mean that he would not win his letter. That would mean— Jeff stopped short in his tracks. Suddenly a thought occurred to him. Had Gould found the examination paper and used it to keep him out of the Lawrencetown game! If he played in the Lawrencetown game Gould would not win his letter. But if he remained ineligible, Gould was the logical man to take his place and in playing the game he would win the honor he most coveted. Had Gould planted the lost examination paper in his Latin book just to keep him out of the Lawrencetown game? Jeff began to believe that it was very likely.
Jeff’s non-appearance at practice that afternoon caused a number of questions to be raised by the players and students who always watched the team warm up, and Wade Grenville was not slow in supplying the information as to just what had happened and why Jeff was being denied the privilege of practicing with the team and playing in the remaining games of the season.
The attitude of practically all of the fellows was the same. They asserted that a mighty low-down trick had been played on the third baseman, and even Gould, who was filling Jeff’s place, seemed to profess to be disturbed by the unfairness of it all, and was loud in his insistence that if Thatcher was not responsible for his own undoing, the fellow who stooped to such meanness should be smoked out and made to confess.
But Wade refused to be deceived by what he believed was a bit of stage play on the part of Gould, and he refused to accept the attitude of Birdie Pell as anything but sham. Yet, Birdie appeared to be very resentful of the way Thatcher had been “framed” as dishonest, and he insisted that he would do his utmost to help find the fellow who was responsible.