“Very well, Crawford,” said Mr. Horton, “it shall be as you wish. I think you are right, and one who can so frankly and manfully acknowledge his fault, cannot fail to win back the respect of his classmates.”
Crawford dropped into his seat with a flush of pleasure at these words, and the boys separated, but more than one glanced coldly at Lee, and Hamlin could not refrain from saying, as he passed Lee’s seat:—
“I hope you are satisfied now, and will stop hounding Clark for the future.”
Lee made no reply, but he thought to himself, “Clark didn’t cheat that time, it seems, but he’s the son of a defaulter; and no Southern boy would take a blow as he did last year.”
Mr. Horton was much disturbed when he learned of the petty stealings that had been going on in the school. Soon, not from section D alone, but from all over the school came complaints of losses of greater or less value. The teachers were very much troubled over the matter. They could not bear to suspect any pupil in the school, but no one else had access to class-rooms and dressing-rooms except the janitor, and he had been in charge of the building for years, and nothing of this kind had ever before occurred. A strict watch was kept over the dressing-rooms through the day, and no scholars were allowed to enter the class-rooms until the teachers came in the morning, or to remain after the departure of the teachers in the afternoon. In spite of these rules however, the losses continued.
One wet day, Raleigh, who lived a long way from the school, was obliged to walk home because the car-tickets he had carelessly left in his overcoat pocket, were missing. The next morning, he appeared wearing an old shabby overcoat in place of the new one he had had the day before.
“What’s the matter, Raleigh? Has your new coat been jagged?” questioned Barber, overtaking him near the school gate.
“No,” said Raleigh, “but if you’ll keep mum, I’ll tell you why I wore this.”
“Mum’s the word,” said Barber, promptly, and Raleigh went on:—
“My car-tickets vanished yesterday. Served me right, I suppose, for being such a ninny as to leave them in my overcoat pocket; but it made me mad to have to foot it all the way home in the wet, so I planned a little scheme to put a mark on the stealer. My sister has some shoe blacking that stains like fury—worse than any ink I ever got hold of—and I’ve soaked a sponge with it, and put it in my side pocket, here. See?”