okseller _tete-a-tete_.

"What do you want?" asked Coote.

"Come, none of your tricks with me, young fellow! I want that pencil-
case, there!"

"Pencil-case! What pencil-case? I've not got any pencil-case!" said
Coote.

Mr Webster had expected this; he would have been a trifle disappointed
had the criminal pleaded guilty at once.

"Do you suppose I didn't see you with it in your hand in my shop, sir,
this morning?" said he.

"But I didn't take it--I haven't got it--I wouldn't do such a thing,"
said Coote, beginning to feel very uncomfortable.

"You'd like me to suppose that some one else took it; wouldn't you?"
said Mr Webster, feeling so sure of his ground as quite to enjoy
himself.

"If you've lost it, somebody else did. I didn't," said the boy.

"Now, look here, young gentleman, that sort of thing may go down at home
or here in school, but it's no use trying it on with me. If you don't
choose to give me that pencil this moment, we'll see what a policeman
can do."

At this threat Coote turned pale. "Really, I never took it! You may
feel in my pockets. Oh, _please_ don't bring a policeman, Mr Webster!"

"What's your name?" demanded Mr Webster, ostentatiously producing a
pencil and paper.

"Coote--Arthur Dennis Coote," said the trembling boy.

"Address?"

"One, Richmond Villas, Richmond Road, G---."

"Very well, Mr Coote," said the stationer, folding up the paper and
putting it into his pocket-book; "unless you call on me before this time
to-morrow with the pencil, I'll have you locked up. Good morning."

Coote, with his heart in his shoes, watched the retreating figure till
it was lost to view, and then turned, bewildered and scared, to the
school.

Heathcote was waiting for him at the door.

"Well, what did the cad want?--what's the row, I say?" he demanded,
catching sight of the dazed face of his chum.

"Oh, Georgie, a most frightful row!" gasped Coote. "He says I've stolen
a pencil!"

"What, the one you were talking about?"

"Yes, the very one."

"I suppose you haven't, really?" asked Heathcote, with no false
delicacy.

"No, really I haven't--that is, if I have I-- Look here; do hunt my
pockets, will you, old man?"

Georgie obeyed, and every pocket of the unhappy Coote was successively
explored, without bringing to light the missing pencil.

"There," said the suspect, with a sigh of relief when the operation was
over, "I was positive I hadn't got it. He says I was the on