Coote, with his heart in his shoes, watched the retreating figure till it was lost to view, and then turned, bewildered and scared, to the school.
Heathcote was waiting for him at the door.
“Well, what did the cad want?—what’s the row, I say?” he demanded, catching sight of the dazed face of his chum.
“Oh, Georgie, a most frightful row!” gasped Coote. “He says I’ve stolen a pencil!”
“What, the one you were talking about?”
“Yes, the very one.”
“I suppose you haven’t, really?” asked Heathcote, with no false delicacy.
“No, really I haven’t—that is, if I have I— Look here; do hunt my pockets, will you, old man?”
Georgie obeyed, and every pocket of the unhappy Coote was successively explored, without bringing to light the missing pencil.
“There,” said the suspect, with a sigh of relief when the operation was over, “I was positive I hadn’t got it. He says I was the only one in the shop, and that he missed it as soon as I had gone; but really and truly I didn’t take it; I never did such a thing in my life.”