What happened in the half-hour during which Wilmot was closeted with Mr. Westcott was never fully known to the boys. Steve spoke of it very unwillingly, and his memory of such scenes was never good. The instant he saw the fatal box of shooting matches on the table before him, he knew that it was all up with him, and his only course was to obtain the best terms of surrender possible. The terms were hard. He was suspended from school for a week. His parents were to be notified; he was to make up all lost lessons at home with a tutor; the school was to be informed of the misdeed and the penalty; he was not to return to the chemistry class unless Mr. Cary expressed a desire to give him another trial. Against the suspension Steve pleaded piteously; he would copy thousands of lines, stay after school hours every day, apologize to anybody and everybody,—if only the message didn’t go home. But Mr. Westcott was inexorable; the letter was posted that very afternoon. The next day was a bitter one for Steve Wilmot. Immediately after breakfast his mother retired to the privacy of her chamber to weep; his father paced the library for some time before he could calm himself sufficiently to give the boy a hearing. It was not the first occasion on which Steve had brought unhappiness upon his family. From the day when he began to walk he had been blundering into scrapes. He had been dealt with by all recognized methods of discipline. Severe punishment, denunciation, threats, gentle remonstrance, pleading, exhortation, loss of allowance—none had prevailed to change his nature. A psychological expert had once declared that since Steve’s escapades were mere boyish tricks without malice, they would be outgrown in time. The hope born of this assurance had carried the parents over such shocks as the visit of policemen to warn against trespassing in the public garden, or an indignant letter from a good lady whose cat Steve had snowballed as the dear animal was taking an innocent walk on the alley fence. Now it appeared that their hope had been a delusion, for suspension from school was a humiliation which the family had hitherto been spared. Mr. Wilmot talked gravely about putting the young man to work, but he didn’t mean it. In the end, he accepted Steve’s promise that he would walk circumspectly hereafter all the days of his life. Mrs. Wilmot also found comfort in the reflection that Steve was at bottom neither dishonest nor vicious, and that the salutary effect of the lesson might be expected to outlast the four remaining months of his school career. After all, he might have done worse things than carry shooting matches into a school laboratory. So she dried her tears and hoped again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XIX A LOSS TO THE NINE