lly meet the difficulty. You
must also apologize to Poodles, which you are aware may be done in
private."

"I cannot do it, sir, either in public or in private. Poodles was
wholly and entirely to blame."

"I think not; when I settled the case it was closed up, and it must
not be opened again; at least not till some new testimony is obtained.
I cannot eat my own words."

"You may obtain new testimony, if you desire," I suggested.

"What?"

"Poodles signed the declaration that he had performed the examples on
the papers without assistance."

"He did. Have you any doubt that such is the case?" asked Mr.
Parasyte, though he must have been satisfied that Poodles did not work
out the examples.

"I am entirely confident that he did not perform them. Mr. Parasyte,"
I continued, earnestly, "I desire to stay at the Institute. It would
be very bad for me to be turned out, and I am willing to confess I
have done wrong. If you give Poodles the paper with the examination on
it, and he can perform one half of the examples, even now, without
help, I will apologize to him in public or in private."

"That looks very fair, but it is not," replied the principal, rubbing
his head, as if to stimulate his ideas.

"If Poodles can do the problems, I shall be willing to believe that I
am mistaken. In my opinion, he cannot perform a single one of them,
let alone the whole of them."

"I object to this proceeding," said he, impatiently. "It will be
equivalent to my making a confession."

The bell rang for the boys to assemble for the evening devotions. It
gave Mr. Parasyte a shock, for the business was still unsettled. I had
submitted to him a method by which he could ascertain the truth or
falsehood of Poodle's statements; but it involved an acknowledgment
that he, Mr. Parasyte, was in the wrong. He seemed to be afraid it
would be proved that he had made a blunder; that he had given an
unjust judgment. I was fully aware that the principal's position was a
difficult and painful one, and I was even disposed to sympathize with
him to a certain extent, though I was the victim of his partiality and
injustice. The perils and discomforts of his situation, however, had
been produced by his own hasty and unfair judgment; and it would have
been far better for him even to apologize to me. He would have lost
nothing with the boys by such a course; for never in my life did I
have so exalted an opinion of a schoolmaster, as when, conscious that