“No, no!” cried Sid, alarmed at this misunderstanding. “They were joking when they said I wasn’t Henderson.”
“Well, who are you, then?”
“Why, I am Henderson. This is my camera.”
“Don’t make it any worse, young man,” warned the teacher sternly. “Come with me to the proctor!”
There was no help for it, Sid had to go. He might have broken away from the professor, but he did not like to try it, for Mr. Tines seemed very determined, and the ensuing tumult would bring into the corridor a throng of students, so that Sid would never hear the last of the joke that had turned on him. He went along quietly, thankful that it was dark, and that no one would see him in the walk across the campus to the proctor’s quarters.
“Here is a young man—a thief, if nothing worse, perhaps—whom I caught in the corridor of the west dormitory,” explained Professor Tines to Mr. Zane a little later as he stood with his quarry before the proctor. Sid caught a glimpse of himself in a looking glass in the brightly-lighted office.
“Oh—I—do I look like that?” he gasped as he saw his slimy trousers, and his face, which was like unto that of a chimney sweep, his hands also being covered with the swamp mud.
“You certainly do!” said Professor Tines heartily. “Are you now ready to confess, before we send for an officer?”
“But I tell you I’m Henderson!” insisted the luckless Sid. “It was only a joke when Phil and Tom went back on me. I tell you I’m Henderson, of the sophomore class!”