The line of action which Psmith had called Stout Denial is anexcellent line to adopt, especially if you really are innocent, but itdoes not lead to anything in the shape of a bright and snappy dialoguebetween accuser and accused. Both Mike and the headmaster wereoppressed by a feeling that the situation was difficult. Theatmosphere was heavy, and conversation showed a tendency to flag. Theheadmaster had opened brightly enough, with a summary of the evidencewhich Mr. Downing had laid before him, but after that a massivesilence had been the order of the day. There is nothing in this worldquite so stolid and uncommunicative as a boy who has made up his mindto be stolid and uncommunicative; and the headmaster, as he sat andlooked at Mike, who sat and looked past him at the bookshelves, feltawkward. It was a scene which needed either a dramatic interruption ora neat exit speech. As it happened, what it got was the dramaticinterruption.

　　The headmaster was just saying, "I do not think you fully realise,Jackson, the extent to which appearances--" --which was practicallygoing back to the beginning and starting again--when there was a knockat the door. A voice without said, "Mr. Downing to see you, sir," andthe chief witness for the prosecution burst in.

　　"I would not have interrupted you," said Mr. Downing, "but----""Not at all, Mr. Downing. Is there anything I can----?""I have discovered--I have been informed--In short, it was notJackson, who committed the--who painted my dog."Mike and the headmaster both looked at the speaker. Mike with afeeling of relief--for Stout Denial, unsupported by any weightyevidence, is a wearing game to play--the headmaster with astonishment.

　　"Not Jackson?" said the headmaster.

　　"No. It was a boy in the same house. Smith."Psmith! Mike was more than surprised. He could not believe it. Thereis nothing which affords so clear an index to a boy's character as thetype of rag which he considers humorous. Between what is a rag andwhat is merely a rotten trick there is a very definite line drawn.

　　Masters, as a rule, do not realise this, but boys nearly always do.

　　Mike could not imagine Psmith doing a rotten thing like covering ahousemaster's dog with red paint, any more than he could imagine doingit himself. They had both been amused at the sight of Sammy after theoperation, but anybody, except possibly the owner of the dog, wouldhave thought it funny at first. After the first surprise, theirfeeling had been that it was a scuggish thing to have done and beastlyrough luck on the poor brute. It was a kid's trick. As for Psmithhaving done it, Mike simply did not believe it.

　　"Smith!" said the headmaster. "What makes you think that?""Simply this," said Mr. Downing, with calm triumph, "that the boyhimself came to me a few moments ago and confessed."Mike was conscious of a feeling of acute depression. It did not makehim in the least degree jubilant, or even thankful, to know that hehimself was cleared of the charge. All he could think of was thatPsmith was done for. This was bound to mean the sack. If Psmith hadpainted Sammy, it meant that Psmith had broken out of his house atnight: and it was not likely that the rules about nocturnal wanderingwere less strict at Sedleigh than at any other school in the kingdom.

　　Mike felt, if possible, worse than he had felt when Wyatt had beencaught on a similar occasion. It seemed as if Fate had a specialgrudge against his best friends. He did not make friends very quicklyor easily, though he had always had scores of acquaintances--and withWyatt and Psmith he had found himself at home from the first moment hehad met them.

　　He sat there, with a curious feeling of having swallowed a heavyweight, hardly listening to what Mr. Downing was saying. Mr. Downingwas talking rapidly to the headmaster, who was nodding from time totime.

　　Mike took advantage of a pause to get up. "May I go, sir?" he said.

　　"Certainly, Jackson, certainly," said the Head. "Oh, and er--, if youare going back to your house, tell Smith that I should like to seehim.""Yes, sir."He had reached the door, when again there was a knock.

　　"Come in," said the headmaster.

　　It was Adair.

　　"Yes, Adair?"Adair was breathing rather heavily, as if he had been running.

　　"It was about Sammy--Sampson, sir," he said, looking at Mr. Downing.

　　"Ah, we know--. Well, Adair, what did you wish to say.""It wasn't Jackson who did it, sir.""No, no, Adair. So Mr. Downing----""It was Dunster, sir."Terrific sensation! The headmaster gave a sort of strangled yelp ofastonishment. Mr. Downing leaped in his chair. Mike's eyes opened totheir fullest extent.

　　"Adair!"There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation hadsuddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should informhim, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith'sconfession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the realcriminal was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, inthe words of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, andsubstituted for his brain a side-order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, ofall people? Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the schoolat Christmas. And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, hadPsmith asserted that he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? Heconcentrated his mind on Adair as the only person who could save himfrom impending brain-fever.

　　"Adair!""Yes, sir?""What--_what_ do you mean?""It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutesago, in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog,sir, for a rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want any one hereto get into a row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr. Downing atonce. I tried to find Mr. Downing, but he wasn't in the house. Then Imet Smith outside the house, and he told me that Mr. Downing had goneover to see you, sir.""Smith told you?" said Mr. Downing.

　　"Yes, sir.""Did you say anything to him about your having received this letterfrom Dunster?""I gave him the letter to read, sir.""And what was his attitude when he had read it?""He laughed, sir.""_Laughed!_" Mr. Downing's voice was thunderous.

　　"Yes, sir. He rolled about."Mr. Downing snorted.

　　"But Adair," said the headmaster, "I do not understand how this thingcould have been done by Dunster. He has left the school.""He was down here for the Old Sedleighans' match, sir. He stopped thenight in the village.""And that was the night the--it happened?""Yes, sir.""I see. Well, I am glad to find that the blame cannot be attached toany boy in the school. I am sorry that it is even an Old Boy. It was afoolish, discreditable thing to have done, but it is not as bad as ifany boy still at the school had broken out of his house at night to doit.""The sergeant," said Mr. Downing, "told me that the boy he saw wasattempting to enter Mr. Outwood's house.""Another freak of Dunster's, I suppose," said the headmaster. "I shallwrite to him.""If i............