"
The headmaster's eyes protruded from their sockets. "He--he--_what_,
Mr. Downing?"
"He painted my dog red--bright red." Mr. Downing was too angry to see
anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had
been wounded in his tenderest feelings. His Fire Brigade system had
been most shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in
the hands of a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been
held up to ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile, he
wanted revenge.
The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his
dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him
there was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a
red dog.
"It is a scandalous thing!" said Mr. Downing.
"Quite so! Quite so!" said the headmaster hastily. "I shall punish the
boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall
after chapel."
Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal
to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the
school, with the exception of Johnson III., of Outwood's, who,
suddenly reminded of Sammy's appearance by the headmaster's words,
broke into a wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two
hundred lines.
The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.
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