Specs looked down. Faithful Felix had evidently followed him through the hall when he left the assembly room and was now lying beside his desk, thumping an eager tail against the floor. His unexpected presence provoked discreet mirth from everybody except the teacher and Specs himself.
"No—no ma'am. It's the Magoons'." Common honesty made him add, "But he followed me to school, I guess. I was playing with him."
"Indeed!" said Miss Seeby, looking more offended than ever. "Indeed! Well, put him out—immediately!"
Specs coerced Felix into the hall and warned him to go home and behave himself like a good dog. But there must have been meekness and apology in the command; for, instead of obeying, Felix went only as far as the outer corridor, where he slunk into a dark comer. Two minutes later, in any event, he was scratching at the classroom door and whining for admittance.
Miss Seeby had just shown her pupils a drawing of the fragrant fern and asked again that any one who knew where it was to be found secure a specimen at the first opportunity. She paused suddenly, and her face hardened.
"Take that dog away," she ordered Specs; "yes, take him home. And you need not come back to school yourself until you have a note from your father to Professor Leland, stating that you are sorry for this outrage and promising that you will not bring that animal here again."
Very penitent, although somewhat confused over the exact nature of his guilt, Specs rose and made dizzily for the door. As he closed it behind him, he could hear the giggling of the class and a smothered reference—he credited it to Rodman Cree—about "Mary's little lamb", interrupted by the teacher's sharp admonition for silence.
To Specs' credit, be it recorded that he followed instructions to the best of his ability. With an affectionate twist of Felix's ear, he strode down the hall and outdoors, even forgetting his cap in his hurry, with the dog tagging at his heels. Straight to the Magoons' he led Felix; sternly he told him to stay there. Then he ambled downtown, to explain to his parent as best as he could the disgrace that had befallen him.
"Your father's out in the country," the clerk in the McGrew hardware store told him. "He'll be back in an hour or two, though."