Mr. Horton’s own eyes were dim as he looked down at the lad.
“You haven’t told me how you came to be in the dressing-room at recess,” he said gently, after a little silence.
“Why, I hunted all over the playground for Willie, and when I found he wasn’t there, I felt somehow that I must find him, and be sure he wasn’t doing anything wrong. You see, I only found out about this a few days ago, and he had promised me solemnly that he’d never take another thing that did not belong to him. You know there’s another dressing-room adjoining ours, and the windows of the two are only a foot apart. As I came through the hall, I saw Willie slip into that other room, and I got to the door just in time to see him climb up on the window sill. I didn’t dare speak, for fear he’d fall, but I waited till he’d climbed from one window to the other, and slipped down into our dressing-room, and then went in, and shut the door after me. Willie had his hand in the pocket of an old overcoat, one I never saw before. I snatched his hand as he drew it out, and it was all wet with what looked like ink, and that’s the way mine got daubed.”
“And Willie kept the half-dollar he found in the overcoat?” said Mr. Horton.
“Oh, no, I made him give it up, and I put it back in the pocket.”
“And then?” questioned the teacher.
“Then he cried, and said that those fellows had threatened to tell Professor Keene that he was a thief, unless he’d keep on taking things. He hasn’t kept a single thing himself, Mr. Horton. They lent him some money a while ago, and because he couldn’t pay it back, they kept at him, telling him that he could easily pick up loose change enough in the dressing-rooms to pay the debt, and after he had taken one piece of money, then you see, they held that over him to make him keep on.”
“And these boys; who are they?” said Mr. Horton sternly.
Again Dixon hesitated, but in his heart he knew that such boys were too dangerous to be suffered to remain in the school to lead weak boys astray, and so he gave the names.
When at last Raleigh and Barber were called in, they were glad enough to learn that their classmate was not the thief; and Dixon, his mind relieved by having passed the responsibility over to Mr. Horton, could even laugh at his stained fingers, while he appreciated Raleigh’s ingenious plan.