Tom, Dick and Harry | Page 4

cat--that is, to shoot the dog. To what scoundrel was Dangerfield College now indebted for this inestimable blessing?
Dead silence followed the doctor's announcement. Boys' faces were studies as they stood there rent in twain by delight at the news and horror at the inevitable doom of the culprit.
"I repeat," said the head master, "Hector was found this morning shot in his kennel. Does any boy here know anything about it?"
Dead silence. The master's eyes passed rapidly along the forms, but returned evidently baffled.
"I trust I am to understand by your silence that none of you know anything about it. There is no doubt whatever that the guilty person will be found. I do not say that his name is known yet. If he is in this room,"--here he most unjustifiably fixed me with his eye--"he knows as well as I do what will be the consequence to him. Now go to breakfast. I shall have more to say about this matter presently."
If Dr Plummer had been anxious to save his tea and bread-and-butter from too fierce an inroad he could hardly have selected a better method. Dangerfield College was completely "off its feed" this morning. Indeed, Ramsbottom, the usher, had almost to bully the victuals down the boys' throats in order to get the meal over. The only boy who made any pretence to an appetite was the Dux, who ate steadily, much to my amazement, in the intervals of the conversation.
"It's a bit of a go, ain't it?" observed Dicky Brown, who, despite his educational advantages, could never quite master the politest form of his native tongue.
"Rather," said I--"awkward for somebody."
Then, as my eyes fell once more on Tempest, complacently cutting another slice off the loaf, an idea occurred to me.
"You know, Dicky," said I, feeling that I was walking on thin ice, "I almost fancied I heard a sound of a gun in the night."
Dicky laughed.
"Trust you for knowing all about a thing after it's happened. It would have been a rum thing if you hadn't."
This was unfeeling of Dicky. I am sure I have never pretended to know as much about anything as he did.
"Oh, but I really did--a shot, and a yell too," said I.
"Go it, you're getting on," said Dicky. "You can pile it up, Tom. Why don't you say you saw me do it while you are about it?"
"Because I didn't."
"All I can say," said the Dux, buttering his bread liberally, "I'm precious glad the beast is off the hooks. I always hated him. Which of you kids did it?"
We both promptly replied that he was quite under a wrong impression. We were pained by the very suggestion.
"All right," said he, laughing in his reckless way, and talking quite loud enough for Plummer to hear him if he happened to come in, "you've less to be proud of than I fancied. If you didn't do it, who did, eh?"
That was the question which was puzzling every one, except perhaps myself, who was undergoing a most uncomfortable mental argument as I slowly recalled the events of last night.
"Give it up; ask another," said Faulkner. "I'm precious glad I've not got a pistol." Here the Dux coloured a little, and relapsed into silence. He disliked Faulkner, and objected to his cutting into the conversation.
"One comfort," said I, endeavouring to change the topic: "we may get off that brutal Latin exercise if Plummer takes on hard about this affair."
"Poor old Hector!" said Dicky. "If that's so, we shall owe him one good turn at least--eh, old Compound Proportion?"
This pointed allusion to my misfortunes disinclined me to hold further conversation with Richard Brown, and the meal ended in general silence.
As we trooped back to the schoolroom I overheard Faulkner say to another of the seniors--
"I say, did you see the way Tempest flared up when I said that about the pistol just now? Rather awkward for him, I fancy, if he's got one."
"What's the odds if he didn't shoot the dog?" was the philosophical reply.
For all that, I had observed the Dux's confusion, and the sight of it made me very uncomfortable on his account. Faulkner was right. It would be precious awkward for any one who might be discovered to possess a pistol. The fact that firearms were expressly forbidden at Dangerfield College was itself, I am sorry to say, a strong presumption in favour of Tempest having one. Besides, I had myself once heard him speak about shooting rooks at home with a pistol.
Oddly enough, chance was to put in my way a means of setting my mind at rest almost immediately.
"I say, kid," said the Dux, as I entered the schoolroom just before the time, "I've left my Latin grammar in my locker upstairs. Look sharp, or you'll be late again and catch it."
That was