"Where had he been spending his holiday meanwhile?"
"He didn't tell me, ma'am."
"At all events, he didn't turn up for school next day, nor the next
again, until the afternoon. Queer sort of academy, Stimcoe's.
Did Mr. Stimcoe make any remark on his under-teacher's absence?"
"No, ma'am."
"The school went on just as usual?"
"No-o, ma'am "--I hesitated--"not quite just as usual. Mr. Stimcoe
was unwell."
"Drunk?"
"My dear Miss Belcher!" put in the scandalized Plinny. "A scholar,
and such a gentleman!"
"Fiddlestick-end!" snapped the unconscionable lady, not removing her
eyes from mine. "Was this man Stimcoe drunk, eh? No; I beg your
pardon," she corrected herself. "I oughtn't to be asking a boy to
tell tales out of school. 'Thou shalt not say anything to get another
fellow into trouble'--that's the first and last commandment--eh,
Harry Brooks? But, my good soul"--she turned on Plinny--"if 'drunk
and incapable' isn't written over the whole of that seminary, you may
call me a Dutchwoman!"
"There's a point or so clear enough," she announced, after a pause,
when I had finished my story.
"We must placard the whole country with a description of that
prisoner chap Glass," said Mr.
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