Clint stared. "You mean that--that someone did it deliberately?" he gasped incredulously. "But, Durkin, no one would do a thing like that!"
"Of course, I've got another one," said Penny, "but it isn't like this. This is a Moretti and cost sixty dollars twelve years ago. You can't buy them any more. Moretti's dead, and he only made about three a year, and there aren't many anyhow."
"But, Durkin, who could have done it?"
Penny didn't answer; only picked up the violin tenderly and once more traced the almost imperceptible crack along the face of the mellowed wood.
"You don't mean"--Clint's voice dropped--don't mean Dreer?"
"I can't prove it on him," answered Penny quietly.
"But--but, oh, hang it, Durkin, even Dreer wouldn't do as mean a thing as that!" But even as he said it Clint somehow knew that Penny's suspicions were correct, and, at variance with his assertion, added wrathfully: "By Jove, he ought to be thrashed!"
"He said he'd get even," observed Penny thoughtfully.
Clint sat down on the end of the window-seat and looked frowningly at Penny. "What are you going to do?" he asked finally.
"Don't see that I can do anything except grin," was the reply. "If I charge him with it he'll deny it. No one saw him do it, I guess. He probably came in here early this afternoon. I have French at two, you know, and he probably counted on that. Gus never is in, anyhow. After he did it he put it back in the case, but I knew as soon as I'd opened it that somebody had been at it because my handkerchief was underneath, and I always spread it on top. If I beat him up he'll go to Josh and Josh will say it was an unwarrantable attack, or something, and I'll get the dickens. I can't afford that, because I'm trying hard for a Draper Scholarship and can't take chances. I guess he's evened things up all right, Thayer."