‘I dunno what yer talkin’ about,’ answered Peter son, with heavy resentment.

Mr. Ham blinked again for nearly half a minute.

‘Of course not,’ he said, ‘of course not, my boy.’  Then he turned to Dick and Ted with quiet courtesy.  ’Good morning, Richard.  Good morning, Edward.’

Ted, who was painfully conscious of the large ink-splashes on the master’s white trousers, kicked awkwardly at a buried stone, but Dick replied cheerily enough.

The attitude of the master throughout that morning was quite inexplicable to the scholars; he made no allusion whatever to the crimes of which Dick and Ted had been guilty, and gave no hint that he harboured any intentions that were not entirely generous and friendly.  The two culprits, working with quite astounding assiduity, were beset with conflicting emotions.  Dick, who had a vague sort of insight into the master’s character, was prepared for the worst, and yet not blind to the possibility of a free pardon.  Ted, after the first hour, was joyous and over-confident.

Mr. Peterson called during the morning and conferred with Joel for a few minutes.  The gaping school knew what that meant, and awaited the out come with the most anxious interest.  Mr. Peterson, a six-foot Dane, an engine-driver at the Stream, and Billy’s father, was volunteering for service in case Mr. Ham should need assistance in dealing with the two culprits; but Joel sent him away, and the boys breathed freely again.  Their confidence in Dolf’s ‘rosum’ did not leave them quite blind to the advantages of an amicable settlement of their little difference with Mr. Ham.

It was not until the boys were marching out for the dinner hour, satisfied at last all was well, that Joel seemed suddenly to recollect, and he called after Ted, blighting the poor youth’s new-born happiness and filling his small soul with a great apprehension.

‘Teddy,’ he called, ’you will remain, my boy.  I have private business with you—­private and confidential, Teddy.’

So Ted fell out and stood by the wall, a very monument of dejection.

When school met again the scholars noted that the ink-stains had been carefully washed and scraped from the wall and the floor, and they found Ted McKnight sprawling in his place, his head buried in his arms, dumb and unapproachable.  If a mate came too close, moved by curiosity or a desire to offer sympathy, Ted lashed out at him with his heels.  For the time being he was a small but cankered misanthrope full of vengeful schemes, and only one person in the whole school envied him.  That person was Richard Haddon, whose turn was yet to come.

An hour passed and Dick had received no hint of the trouble in store.  Then Joel Ham, prowling along the desks, inspecting a task, stopped before the boy and stood eyeing him with the curiosity with which an entomologist might regard a rare grub, clawing his thin whiskers the while.  The interest he felt was apparently of the most friendly description.