mped is down on the study floor.
Mr. Downing stooped eagerly over it. Psmith leaned against the wall,
and straightened out the damaged garment.

"We have here, sir," he said, "a fair selection of our various
bootings."

Mr. Downing looked up.

"You dropped none of the boots on your way up, Smith?"

"Not one, sir. It was a fine performance."

Mr. Downing uttered a grunt of satisfaction, and bent once more to his
task. Boots flew about the room. Mr. Downing knelt on the floor beside
the basket, and dug like a terrier at a rat-hole.

At last he made a dive, and, with an exclamation of triumph, rose to
his feet. In his hand he held a boot.

"Put those back again, Smith," he said.

The ex-Etonian, wearing an expression such as a martyr might have worn
on being told off for the stake, began to pick up the scattered
footgear, whistling softly the tune of "I do all the dirty work," as
he did so.

"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.

"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the
basket here. You can carry it back when you return."

"Shall I put back that boot, sir?"

"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."

"Shall I carry it, sir?"

Mr. Downing reflected.

"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."

It occurred to him that the spectacle of a housemaster wandering
abroad on the public highway, carrying a dirty boot, might be a trifle
undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.

Psmith took the boot, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
him.

Across the toe of the boot was a broad splash of red paint.

He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed;
but when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and
when, on the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a
paint-splashed boot, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at
the name inside the boot. It was "Brown, boot-maker, Bridgnorth."
Bridgnorth was only a few miles from his own home and Mike's.
Undoubtedly it was Mike's boot.

"Can you tell me whose boot that is?" asked Mr. Downing.

Psmith looked at it again.

"No, sir. I can't say the little chap's familiar to me."

"Come with me, then."

Mr. Downing left the room. After a moment Psmith followed him.

The headmaster was in his garden. Thither Mr. Downing made his way,
the boot-bearing Psmith in close attendance.

The Head listened to the amateur detective's sta