MEANTIME the school had heard the proclamation of the sin and its punishment, and looked upon Wilmot’s vacant seat. The exile was missed. Dunn chuckled ecstatically over the amusing fact that the official lightning had passed by the bold man of action and struck the crafty suggester. His merriment was coldly received. “You’d better shut up, Jason,” said Trask, roughly. “Any fool can stick a match into a sand box when he’s given the match and told how to do it.” “And no one but a fool would have put that one into the bag,” declared Eaton. “I believe that’s what gave poor Steve away.” “That’s right,” said Sumner, in confirmation. “And Steve said one, not three. If only one had gone off, Cary wouldn’t have suspected anything, and Steve wouldn’t have got stung. You gave the thing dead away.” Dunn, who had by this time lost all pride in his handiwork, glowered across the table. “If he was afraid of getting stung, he ought to have kept clear of the thing altogether,” he growled. “He took his risk, and I took mine. It isn’t my fault if he left his matches in the drawer!” “He wouldn’t have left them there if Cary hadn’t forced him to, and Cary wouldn’t have been standing over him if you hadn’t tried to burn the whole box at once.” This, from Trask, was but a repetition of Sumner’s argument. “You both ought to be spanked,” remarked Talbot. “It isn’t fair that one should be soaked and the other not.” “Would you have me go to Westcott and say, ‘I’m guilty, please sting me too?’ I see myself doing that!” Dunn gave a derisive laugh at the idea. “No one who knows you would expect that of you,” replied Talbot, significantly. “It wouldn’t do any good, either. Hardie tried to help Steve out by confessing that he brought the matches to school and offering to take part of the punishment, but it wouldn’t go.” Dunn sniffed his contempt. “And old Westcott soaked him for it.” “No!” answered Talbot, shortly. “He isn’t that kind of a man.” After this conversation Dunn avoided all reference to the laboratory incident, and would have been glad to have the others forget it, but they continued to regard him as responsible for Wilmot’s misfortune, and withdrew their favor from him. Those were unpleasant days for Archibald Dunn; no one at Adams’s would have much to do with him, and the conviction, in part justified, that he was not receiving from the boys a fair deal kept him morose and sulky. Moreover, frank letters concerning his work were going home to his parents, which served to plunge him more deeply in trouble. Having shirked and trifled so long, he was well-nigh incapable of doing anything else. About the time of Wilmot’s return to school, Talbot called out the candidates for the crew. They came in a flock, ranging in size from Bumpus the fat to McDowell the small, and in degrees of chance according to the popular estimate, from Talbot the sure-to-make-it to any one of a half-dozen equally sure not to make it.