“Oh, but I really did—a shot, and a yell too,” said I.
“Go it, you’re getting on,” said Dicky. “You can pile it up, Tom. Why don’t you say you saw me do it while you are about it?”
“Because I didn’t.”
“All I can say,” said the Dux, buttering his bread liberally, “I’m precious glad the beast is off the hooks. I always hated him. Which of you kids did it?”
We both promptly replied that he was quite under a wrong impression. We were pained by the very suggestion.
“All right,” said he, laughing in his reckless way, and talking quite loud enough for Plummer to hear him if he happened to come in, “you’ve less to be proud of than I fancied. If you didn’t do it, who did, eh?”
That was the question which was puzzling every one, except perhaps myself, who was undergoing a most uncomfortable mental argument as I slowly recalled the events of last night.
“Give it up; ask another,” said Faulkner. “I’m precious glad I’ve not got a pistol.” Here the Dux coloured a little, and relapsed into silence. He disliked Faulkner, and objected to his cutting into the conversation.
“One comfort,” said I, endeavouring to change the topic: “we may get off that brutal Latin exercise if Plummer takes on hard about this affair.”
“Poor old Hector!” said Dicky. “If that’s so, we shall owe him one good turn at least—eh, old Compound Proportion?”