Dunn was questioned in the office in a most unpleasant secret session,
while the fifth in their Latin room were forced to trace the route
between Mike’s desk and the waste-basket. When the different stations on
this underground railroad were located, and the shoe was produced by the
boy who had consigned it to its last resting-place, the guilty received
the regular penalty for small misdemeanors, and the Latin lesson took
its usual course.
Dunn’s session was longer. He emerged with a very red face, and sat with
a book open before him, staring angrily and unprofitably at its pages
for many minutes. He was very late for football practice for several
days after, on an excuse that was evidently valid. This, however, might
have been but a passing experience, forgotten in a fortnight, had not a
heartless sally from Wilmot perpetuated the memory of the unpleasantness
and given Mike a telling advantage over his bigger foe.
As was to be expected, Dunn had no history lesson that morning. He never
did compass more than half a lesson, but to-day he was as ignorant on
the subject of Greek Oracles and Greek Colonization as the Esquimau in
his hut of ice on the edge of No Man’s Land.
More than this, he showed himself distrait, and totally impervious to
the cleverly pointed shafts with which Mr. Downs sought to pierce a way
to thick-crusted brains. The patient instructor, ignorant, of course, of
the disturbance of the morning, and faithful to duty even under
discouraging circumstances, detained Dunn after the class was dismissed
for recess to admonish him of the evil consequences of idleness and
inattention. As a result, Dunn arrived at the lunch room late, facing
with an uneasy and unnatural grin a full collection of unsympathetic
teases.
“Jason!” cried Wilmot, loudly. “Beware of the man with one shoe!”
About one first class boy in five understood the reference, and this one
was immediately besought by his four ignorant companions to explain the
joke, for joke they were sure it must be. Johnny Cable, the book-learned
but otherwise incapable, was in excessive demand for the next few
minutes to clear up the mystery. These few minutes Dunn employed in
strengthening his defence of indifference and preparing himself for the
coming questions as to what Mr. Westcott had said to him, and what he
was going to do to Mike. He answered the questions in very ambiguous
terms, but his threats against the chief agent in his misfortunes were
no less awful because of their vagueness, while the grins of a dozen
fifth class boys at the long table opposite kept his wrath at the
boiling-point. Ben Tracy at last succeeded in diverting the general
interest to Redfield, who had made a new record that morning in the
smashing of glass tubes in the laboratory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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