As he paused a moment, Harry broke in with the same denials he had used before. He could not yet bring himself to try his last resource of affirming who was the rightful owner of the book, and he feared even that would but make his case worse.
"Go into my study, and wait till I come," added Dr Palmer.
And Harry, knowing what that meant, went away trembling; for no boy on the eve, or in the midst of, a caning, feels much consolation in a consciousness of his innocence.
How he got to Dr Palmer's study he knew not. The playground seemed so very long, and the boys who crowded to watch him pass, to have doubled or trebled their number. And he was almost glad, if such a feeling is compatible with his position, when he reached the room of horrors, as the Doctor's sanctum really was to the boys; for none set foot therein save those who were "in for a row."
Crossing the hall he met Dr Palmer's butler, an old man, most familiar to everybody, who never even said "Sir" to his master; but then he had known him from a boy. So it is no wonder his greeting to Harry was so blunt.
"What? 's that you, Campbell? Well, to be sure! In for a caning, I s'pose. What have you been and done now?"
"Nothing, William. I haven't done nothing," sobbed Harry, regardless of grammar. "I'm going to be caned for nothing."
"Oh no! nothing at all. That's what they all say, the young rascals," ejaculated William, half aloud, as he hurried away, partly about his business, but chiefly because he didn't like the sight of the boy's tears.
It made him think of the time when he used to steal apples (he would tell them in the kitchen), and his mother used to hold him up by his ears while his father thrashed him.
Harry had scarcely taken his seat upon the edge of one of Dr Palmer's crimson-morocco-covered chairs when he heard the fatal footstep in the hall, and the next moment the Doctor entered.