“No yelling now,” said he sternly.
“Must I stand by and let somebody rob me without saying a word?” vociferated Lester.
“By no means; but you can act like a sane boy and report the matter in a quiet way, can’t you? Now explain, and be quick about it, for the superintendent wants to see me.”
“Why, Huggins has run away—he intended to do it when he got that pass last night—and he has taken every dollar I had in the world to help himself along. Just look here,” said Lester, picking up the hasp of his trunk which had been broken in two in the middle. “Huggins did that yesterday, and I never knew it until a few minutes ago. I went to my trunk to get out a clean collar, and then I found that the hasp was broken, and that my clothes were tumbled about in the greatest confusion. I looked for my money the first thing, but it was gone.”
“Don’t you know that it is against the rules for a student to have more than five dollars in his possession at one time?” asked Bert. “If you had lived up to the law and given your money into the superintendent’s keeping, you would not have lost it.”
“What do I care for the law?” snarled Lester.
“You ought to care for it. If you didn’t intend to obey it, you had no business to sign the muster-roll.”
“Well, who’s going to get my hundred dollars back for me? That’s what I want to know,” cried Lester, who showed signs of going off into another flurry.
“I don’t know that any one can get it back for you,” said Bert quietly. “It is possible that you may never see it again.”
“Then I’ll see some more just like it, you may depend upon that,” said Lester, walking nervously up and down the floor and shaking his fists in the air. “I was robbed in the superintendent’s house, and he is bound to make my loss good.”