“Can you remember whether I was with you all the time?”

“You were.”

“Now, Platt, will you tell me how long after the wallet was put into my pocket before Mr. Smith appeared in search of it?”

“Not over half an hour.”

“I submit, then,” said Hector, in a matter-of-fact manner, “that I was absent in the playground during the entire time when it was found in my room.  I believe this is what lawyers call an alibi that I have, fortunately, been able to prove.”

“You are a very smart lawyer!” sneered the principal.

The boys were by this time so incensed at Mr. Smith’s evident effort to clear his nephew at the expense of Roscoe, that there was a very audible hiss, in which at least half a dozen joined.

“Is this rebellion?” asked Socrates, furiously.

“No, sir,” said Ben Platt, firmly.  “We want justice done; that is all.”

“You shall have justice—­all of you!” exclaimed Socrates, carried beyond the limits of prudence.

“I am glad to hear that, sir,” said Hector.  “If you do not at once exonerate me from this charge, which you know to be false, and write to my guardian retracting it, I will bring the matter before the nearest magistrate.”

This was more than Socrates had bargained for.  He saw that he had gone too far, and was likely to wreck his prospects and those of the school.

“I will look into the matter,” he said, hurriedly, “and report to the school hereafter.  You may now apply yourselves to your studies.”

CHAPTER XXI.

The usher is discharged.

Among the boys of Smith Institute there was but one opinion on the subject of the principal’s wallet.  All acquitted Roscoe of having any part in the theft, and they were equally unanimous in the belief that Jim Smith had contrived a mean plot against the boy whom he could not conquer by fair means.  There was a little informal consultation as to how Jim should be treated.  It was finally decided to “send him to Coventry.”

As this phrase, which is well understood in English schools, may not be so clear to my readers, I will explain that Jim was to be refused notice by his schoolfellows, unless he should become aggressive, when he was to be noticed in a manner far from agreeable.

Jim could not help observing the cold looks of the boys, who but lately were glad enough to receive notice from him, and he became very angry.  As to being ashamed of the exposure, he was not sensitive, nor did he often have any feeling of that kind.  Naturally vindictive, he felt especially angry with the two boys, Ben Platt and Wilkins, whose testimony had proved so uncomfortable for him.

“I’ll thrash those boys if I never thrash another,” he said to himself.  “So they have turned against me, have they?  They’re only fit to black my boots anyway.  I’ll give ’em a lesson.”