“No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?”
“Very big.”
“You did not see his face?”
“It was dark and he never looked back—he was in front of me all the time.”
“Dear me!”
“There is another matter——”
“Yes?”
“This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the bell—he had painted my dog Sampson red.”
The headmaster’s eyes protruded from their sockets. “He—he—what, Mr. Downing?”
“He painted my dog red—bright red.” Mr. Downing was too angry to see anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had been wounded in his tenderest feelings. His Fire Brigade system had been most shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in the hands of a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been held up to ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile, he wanted revenge.