My back went up instinctively at his tone.
“I said, ‘Mum’s the word,’” I replied as doggedly as I could.
The doctor changed colour. This was getting serious. He had no precedents for such a case at Dangerfield, and for a moment was evidently at a loss how to proceed.
Perhaps he regretted for once in a way the policy of believing a boy guilty till he can prove himself innocent. Whether he did or no, it was too late to surrender it now.
“Go to your seat, Jones; I shall deal with you presently.”
I marched off, with all the blood of the Joneses tingling in my veins. The ingenuous Dicky was left to his ordeal single-handed.
“Now, Brown,” said the doctor, “you have heard the question, to which I mean to have an answer—and I caution you before I repeat it, to be careful—I shall know what interpretation to put on any attempt to prevaricate. Tell me, Brown, do you know anything at all of this matter, or have you grounds for suspecting any one of being concerned in it?”
Dicky shut his mouth with a snap, and looked as if he wished devoutly some one could turn a key on it and keep it so.
“Speak, sir,” said the doctor, coming down from his desk.
By one of those strange freaks of perversity which are so hard to account for, Dicky’s spirits went up higher every moment, and when the doctor stood over him and repeated the question a third time, he almost, I believe, enjoyed himself. He had never imagined courage was so easy.