Follow My leader Part 51

Pledge heard it with an amused smile.

"They've just been here to try and buy me off," said the indignant shopkeeper, "but I'm going to make an example of them. I'm sorry to do it, Mr Pledge, but it's only fair to myself, isn't it, sir?"

"I don't know," said Pledge; "I don't see that it will do you much good.

You'd better leave it to me."

"Leave it to you?"

"Well, I expect I can get back your pencil as easily as you can, if they've got it. You're sure they have got it?"

"I'm certain Master Coote took it; certain as I stand here. What they've done with it among them I can't say."

"Well, don't be in a hurry. I'm a monitor, you know, and it's as much to my interest to follow the thing up as to yours. If you'll take my advice, you won't be in a hurry to prosecute. Wait a week."

"Very good, sir," said the bookseller, to whom it was really a relief to postpone final action for a day or two, at least. If Pledge, meanwhile, should succeed in bringing the culprit to book, it would still rest with Mr Webster to decide whether to make an example of him or not Pledge departed, and the bookseller turned to dust his shop out for the day.

In this occupation he had not proceeded far, when his brush, penetrating into a crack in his counter, caused something within to rattle. Being a tidy man, and not favouring dust or dirt of any sort, even out of sight, he proceeded to probe the hole in order to clear away the obstruction, when, to his amazement and consternation, he discovered, snugly lying in the hollow, the lost pencil-case!

Mr Webster's first thought was, "Artful young rogues! They've brought it back, and hidden it here to escape punishment!"

And yet, when he came to think of it, all the dust in that hole could not have settled there during the last half-hour; nor--and he was sure of this--had either of the boys, on their last two visits, been anywhere near that side of his shop.

After all, he had "run his head against a stone wall," and narrowly escaped ruining himself as far as Templeton was concerned. For he knew the young gentlemen of that school well enough to be sure, after a blunder like this, that the place would soon have become too hot to hold him.

Mr Webster positively gasped at the thought of his narrow escape, and forgot all about Pledge, and the culprit, and the culprit's friends, in his self congratulation.

About mid-day, however, he was suddenly reminded of them all, by the vision of d.i.c.k darting into the shop.

"Webster," said that youth, in tones of breathless entreaty, "_do_ let us off this once! Coote really never took the pencil, and if you have him taken up, it will be ruination! I shall get in a row for coming down now, but I couldn't help. We'll do anything if you don't take Coote up. I'll get my father to pay you what you like. Will you, please, Webster?"

The boy delivered this appeal so rapidly and earnestly that Webster had no time to stop him; but when d.i.c.k paused, he said:--

"Make yourself comfortable, Mr Richardson, I've found the pencil."

d.i.c.k literally shouted, as he sprang forward and seized the bookseller's hand:--

"Found it! Oh, what a brick you are!"

"Yes; it had fallen into that hole, and I just turned it out. Lucky for you and your friend it did. And I'm not sorry, either, for I'd no fancy for putting any of you to trouble; but I was bound to protect myself, you see."

"Of course, of course. You're a regular trump, Webster," cried d.i.c.k, too delighted to feel at all critical of the way in which the bookseller was extricating himself from his dilemma. "I'm so glad; so will they be. Thanks, awfully, Webster. I say, I must get a _Templeton Observer_ for the good of the shop."

And he flung down a sixpence in the bigness of his heart, and taking the newspaper, darted back to Templeton in a state of jubilation and happiness, which made pa.s.sers-by, as he rushed down the street, turn round and look after him.

In ten minutes Coote and Heathcote were as radiant as he; and that afternoon the Templeton "Tub" echoed with the boisterous glee of the three heroes, as they played leap-frog with one another in the water, and set the rocks almost aglow with the sunshine of their countenances.

But Nemesis is proverbially a cruel old lady. She sports with her victims like a cat with a mouse. And just when the poor scared things, having escaped one terrible swoop of her hand, take breath, she comes down remorselessly with the other hand, and dashes away hope and breath at a blow.

And so it fared with our unlucky heroes. No sooner had they escaped the fangs of Mr Webster, than they found themselves writhing in the clutches of a new terror, twice as bad and twice as awkward.

In the first flush of escape, d.i.c.k had crammed the _Templeton Observer_, which he had paid sixpence for in celebration of the finding of the pencil, into his pocket, and never given it another thought. During the evening, however, having occasion to search the pocket for another of its numerous contents, he came upon it, and drew it out.

"What's that--the _Templeton Observer_?" asked Heathcote, becoming suddenly serious. "Anything in it?"

"I haven't looked," said d.i.c.k, becoming serious, too, and inwardly anathematising the public press.

"May as well," said Heathcote.

"Perhaps there'll be something about the All England Tennis Cup in it,"

said Coote.

d.i.c.k opened the paper, and his jaw dropped at the first paragraph which met his eye.

"Well," said Heathcote, reflecting his friend's consternation in his own looks, "whatever is it?"

"Has Lawshaw won it, or Renford?" inquired Coote.

d.i.c.k pa.s.sed the paper to Georgie, who read as follows:--

*The mysterious disappearance of a Templeton boat*.--The boatman Thomas White was arrested yesterday at Glistow, and will be charged before the magistrates on Sat.u.r.day with fraudulently p.a.w.ning the boat _Martha_, knowing the same to be only partially his own property. The case is attracting much interest in the town. No news has yet reached us of the missing boat, but we hear on good authority that circ.u.mstances have come to light pointing to White himself as the thief, and we believe evidence to this effect will be offered at Sat.u.r.day's examination. The police are reticent on the subject.

"What was the score of sets?" asked Coote, as Heathcote put down the paper.

The latter replied by handing the paper to the questioner and pointing to the fatal paragraph.

Coote read it in great bewilderment. Of course he knew all about Tom White's row and the missing _Martha_. Every Templeton fellow, from Mansfield down to Gosse, knew it. But why should d.i.c.k and Heathcote look so precious solemn about it?

"By Jove!" said he, "I wish they'd catch the fellow. What's the use of the police being reticent?"

"Coote, old man," said d.i.c.k, in a tone which made the youth addressed open his eyes, "do you know how the _Martha_ got lost?"

"Stolen," said Coote, "by a fellow who was skulking about on the sands."

"Wrong. She was turned adrift; someone loosed the anchor rope when the tide was coming in."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I was the fellow."

"And I helped," said Heathcote.

"My eye! what a regular row!" said Coote.

Whereupon the "Firm" swore eternal friendship, and resolved to sink or swim together.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE HERMIT COMES OUT OF HIS CELL.