"All right, Doc. But I didn't know you was a doc too."
"Doctor of letters, merely."
Pete suspected that he was being joked with, but the principal's manner was quite serious. "If you will give me your address, I will drop a line to Mr. Forbes," said the principal.
Pete gave his name and address. As Principal Wheeler wrote them down in his notebook he glanced up at Pete curiously. "You don't happen to be the young man—er—similarity of names—who was mixed up in that shooting affair in El Paso? Name seemed familiar. No doubt a coincidence."
"It wa'n't no coincidence—it was a forty-five," stated Pete.
The principal stared at Pete as though he half-expected to see him pull a gun and demand an education instanter. But Pete's smile helped the principal to pull himself together. "Most extraordinary!" he exclaimed. "I believe the courts exonerated you?"
"That ain't all they did to me," Pete assured him. "Nope. You got that wrong. But I reckon they would 'a' done it—if I hadn't 'a' hired that there lawyer from El Paso. He sure exonerated a couple o' thousand out o' me. And the judge turned me loose."
"Most extraordinary!"
"It was that lawyer that told me I ought to git a education," exclaimed Pete.
"Of course! Of course! I had forgotten it for the moment. Well, here is Mr. Forbes's address. I think you will find him at his room almost any evening."