DEAR HERBERT,--One of those incredible incidents has just happened
here, an incident that makes one feel how little one knows of human
beings, and that truth, in spite of the conscientious toil of Mr. H. G.
Wells, does still continue to keep ahead of fiction. Here is the story.
Some money is missed in a master's house; circumstances seem to point
to its having been abstracted by one of the boys. A good-natured,
flighty boy is suspected, absolutely without reason, as it turns out;
though he is the sort of boy to mislay his own books and other portable
property to any extent, and to make no great difficulty under pressure
of immediate need, and at the last moment, about borrowing some one
else's chattels. On this occasion the small boys in the house, of whom
he is one, solemnly accuse him of the theft, and the despoiled owner
entreats that the money may be returned. He protests that he has not
taken it. The matter comes to the ears of the house-master, who
investigates the matter in the course of the evening, and interviews
the supposed culprit. The boy denies it again quite unconcernedly and
frankly, goes away from the interview, and wandering about, finds the
small boys of the house assembled in one of the studies discussing a
matter with great interest. "What has happened?" says our suspected
friend. "Haven't you heard?" says one of them; "Campbell's grandmother"
(Campbell is another of the set) "has sent him a tip of L2." "Oh, has
she?" says the boy, with a smile of intense meaning; "I shall have to
go my rounds again." This astonishing confession of his guilt is
received with the interest it deserves, and Campbell is advised to lock
up his money, or to hand it over to the custody of the house-master. In
the course of the evening another amazing event occurs; the boy whose
money was stolen finds the whole of it, quite intact, in the pocket of
his cricketing flannels, where he now remembers having put it. The
supposed culprit is restored to favour, and becomes a reliable member
of society. One of the small boys tells the matron the story of our
hero's amazing remark on the subject, in his presence. The matron
stares at him, bewildered, and asks him what made him say it. "Oh, only
to rag them," says the boy; "they were all so excited about it." "But
don't you see, you silly boy," says the kind old dame, "that if the
money had not been found, you would have been convicted out of your own
mouth of having been the thief?" "Oh yes," says the boy cheerfully;
"but I couldn't help it--it came into my head."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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