and Doctor Wells had pried up the loose
boards with a heavy paper-knife from Teeny-bits' table and were gazing
down at a small pile of loot which consisted of the objects that various
members of the school had reported as lost. It included Fred Harper's
silver sailing trophy, Ned Stillson's gold knife, Snubby Turner's watch
and ten or a dozen other trinkets. Teeny-bits felt stunned. Doctor Wells
had picked out the articles one after another before Teeny-bits found
his voice. Then he said:

"I don't know what you think, Doctor Wells, but the honest truth is that
I didn't know a thing about this. I can't even guess--"

He could say no more; his voice broke a little and he felt as if he were
half a dozen years younger and about to cry in little-boy manner.

"Teeny-bits," said Doctor Wells--it was the second time that night that
Findley Holbrook had been thus addressed by a person in authority at
Ridgley--"I've said once that I believe in you; this doesn't shake my
confidence in your honesty. I'll take charge of these things; I think
you'd better go to bed now and let me see what I can do to solve the
problem. I'll borrow this empty laundry bag."

After Doctor Wells had gone, Teeny-bits undressed and got into bed, but
for hours he did not fall asleep. He kept thinking of Snubby Turner
climbing down the fire escape. Could it be possible that the genial
Snubby was guilty of stealing from his friends, of professing to have
lost property himself and finally of attempting to throw the blame on
another? It seemed unbelievable. But why had Snubby stayed away from the
mass meeting except to break into the rooms of his classmates? It was
all too confusing. Teeny-bits could evolve no satisfactory explanation.
At two or three in the morning he fell into a troubled sleep during
which he dreamed that he was playing in the Jefferson game and that the
stands were yelling in a tremendous chorus:

"He's a _thief_; he's a _thief_!"

CHAPTER VII

ON THE EVE OF THE STRUGGLE

On the morning after the discovery of the loot hidden under the floor of
the closet at 34 Gannett Hall Teeny-bits awoke with the feeling that he
had been experiencing a nightmare in which disaster and unhappiness had
fastened a death-like clutch upon him. It scarcely seemed possible that
those events with which the evening had been crowded were real.

The speech at the mass meeting, the discovery of Snubby Turner sliding
down the side of the fire rope an