UP THE WRONG TREE
Mr. Alsop closed the door of Number 7 behind him, more than ever
convinced that he had caught an experienced and clever offender. Peck’s
confusion when suddenly taxed with an absence from town which he had
supposed totally unknown, his theatrical attempt to bluff, his apparent
conflict in mind over the wisdom of confessing and throwing himself
on Mr. Alsop’s mercy, his pains to keep an over-loyal room-mate from
committing himself to a falsehood, his final decision to abide by the
original denial--all this was the natural behavior of a conscious
culprit. The unfortunate boy had been given an opportunity to confess
and gain a possible mitigation of penalty. The instructor’s conscience
was clear.
Inside Number 7 Duncan was dancing in transports of merriment. “Did you
ever hear anything like it!” he cried. “Oh, but it’s great! If some
fool doesn’t butt in and spoil it all before to-morrow night!”
“You’re a fool yourself!” said Sam, in disgust. “Why didn’t you let me
tell him the facts? I could have cleared you.”
“Because I didn’t want to be cleared,” declared Duncan, joyfully;
“because this is the chance of a lifetime to get back at him for
all his spying at keyholes and sneaking round. If you’d blurted out
everything you wanted to say, you might have made him doubt, and I
don’t want him to doubt.”
“Do you want to be fired for what you didn’t do?” demanded Sam. “You
weren’t in Boston. You were here.”
“I know I was here, but he doesn’t. He’ll bring it up before the
faculty--and then!--”
“And then what?”
“He’ll get a fall, a nice, hard, dizzy fall that’ll make him see stars.
He’ll rise a better man.”
Sam stared for some seconds and meditated. “I don’t see why you’re so
sure about that,” he said at length. “I’m the only one who can prove
you were here. If he doesn’t believe me, why should the rest?”
“You’re not the only one!”
“Were you out that night? If you were, you broke your probation.”
“I wasn’t out.”
“If you had fellows in here, you broke your probation just the same.”
“I didn’t have fellows in here. The laundryman brought my bundle and
collected a dollar twenty. Better than the laundryman, Mr. Sedgwick
came to invite you there Sunday night--I forgot to tell you about it.”
Sam’s face showed deep disgust. “You’re a fine man to leave a message
with, aren’t you? Here it is Monday morning. They’ll think I’m a chump!”
“Never you mind! She’ll forgive you. You can go this afternoon and tell
them how it happened. Maybe you’ll get another invitation. Anyway, Mr.
Sedgwick makes a second witness. Alsop might suppose I’d fixed the
laundryman, but they’ll have to believe Mr. Sedgwick. Then there’s
Don.”
“What has Don to do with it?”
“Sammy, you’re positively thick. Who do you suppose Alsop really saw in
Boston?”
“How should I know?”
“He saw Don!”
Then a light suddenly broke upon Sam’s slow mind. He had met Donald
Peck, Duncan’s twin, on the morning of the Hillbury football game, and
had been amazed at the close resemblance between the two brothers.
Since then, various anecdotes of the pair, current in the school, had
come to his ears, and Duncan himself had told him much about their
experiences together.
“That’s just what happened!” Sam cried. “Don came in from Cambridge to
go to the theatre, and Alsop saw him. I wonder why he didn’t think of
Don.”
“He wouldn’t think of anything except that he’d caught me,” said
Duncan. “He wasn’t looking for ways of proving me innocent.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing. Oh, yes, I am! I’m going to telephone Don, and if he says he
went to the Colonial Theatre that night, I’ll get him to write me a
letter.”
The routine business of the faculty meeting on Tuesday had been
disposed of. Petitions from various misguided students for an extension
of the approaching spring vacation had been refused. It had been
decided that the Mandolin Club might not give a concert in Haverhill,
and that the Assembly Club under certain conditions might hold a dance
on the evening of a certain Friday. The secretary was reading the
alphabetical list of students to refresh the memories of those members
of the faculty who had come to the meeting with questions to ask or
charges to bring. Halfway through the catalogue of seniors, at the name
of Peck, Mr. Alsop interposed.
“Stop there, please! Did any one give Peck permission to go to Boston
on Saturday night?”
Silence effectually answered the question. “I thought not,” continued
Mr. Alsop. “He is on special probation. I was in Boston over Sunday,
and on Saturday night, a little after eight, I saw Peck just entering
a theatre on Boylston Street with a companion whom I did not know. As
soon as I returned I made inquiries at his boarding place, and learned
that he was absent from dinner on Saturday night and from breakfast
Sunday morning. The chambermaid reported him in bed at nine o’clock
on Sunday, his shoes standing before the fireplace still wet. There
was a heavy rain early Sunday morning, as you perhaps remember. I am
convinced that he left town by the six o’clock train Saturday and
returned by the paper train Sunday morning. I questioned him about
the matter and told him where I had seen him. He was confused in his
answers, and at one time seemed on the point of confessing, but he
finally decided to take the other course, and faced it out to the end.”
Mr. Alsop paused.
“If you saw him,” said Mr. Moore, who was presiding, “I should say that
it is a case for immediate dismissal.”
“I saw him distinctly.”
“Who is his room-mate?” asked Professor Towle.
“Archer.”
“What does Archer say?”
“Archer would probably pretend that Peck was in his room on Saturday
evening. He was about to say something to this effect, but Peck,
who evidently wanted to keep him from committing himself to a false
statement, objected to his testifying.”
“That seems a strange proceeding,” remarked Professor Towle. “A boy
who would run away from school for a night wouldn’t be likely to care
whether his room-mate lied or not as long as the testimony was in his
favor.”
“I should myself be very unwilling to believe either that Peck would
leave town without permission or that Archer would lie about it
afterward,” said Dr. Leighton, for the first time taking part in the
discussion.
“It is a question of fact, not of opinion,” replied Mr. Alsop, tartly.
“It might not seem to you so unlikely, if you had seen as much of the
pair as I have.”
“Might it not have been Donald Peck whom you saw?” asked Dr. Leighton.
“He is in Cambridge, and might very well have been in Boston that
night.”
The effect of this question was first to stagger and then to anger Mr.
Alsop. In his zeal to bring the guilty Duncan to punishment, he had
put aside all thought of error in identification. This reminder of the
existence of Duncan’s double came to him as a shock. He entertained
the suggestion but a moment, however, dismissing it immediately as
reflecting on the accuracy of his observation.
“I can only repeat,” he said with frigid dignity, “that I saw Duncan
Peck in Boston Saturday night. The suggestion that the evidence of my
own eyes is not trustworthy will not explain his two absences from
meals, nor the condition of his room on Sunday morning, nor his very
noticeable confusion on being questioned.”
“I am afraid we are spending time unprofitably,” broke in Mr. Moore.
“May I suggest that the case be left to a committee, with full power to
dismiss the boy if he is found guilty?”
Professor Towle moved that Dr. Leighton, Mr. Alsop, and Mr. Snow
constitute such a committee. The motion was passed and the august
body continued its review of the list, putting six boys on special
probation for an excess of five chapel cuts during the term, voting
that notice be sent to three fathers that their sons must be withdrawn,
ordering A. Jones to retire from the Assembly Club, and B. Brown to
give up either French or German, and C. Smith to pay before Thursday
for the damage done in his room or be suspended,--and so on for a
ruthless hour of house-cleaning.
After his first recitation next morning, Dr. Leighton got to work on
the task of his committee. He found Duncan and Sam together in 7 Hale.
Sam retired at the suggestion of the teacher that he wished to talk
with Peck alone.
“Was I fired?” asked Duncan, when Dr. Leighton had stated his errand.
Duncan’s manner showed plenty of curiosity, but little deep concern.
“Your fate is in the hands of a committee,” replied Dr. Leighton. “If
it is true that you were in Boston that night, I couldn’t keep you here
if I would, and you may be sure that I should not try to do so. The
question is one of fact. At present the presumption is against you. I
want first your own word. Were you in Boston Saturday night?”
“No, sir,” responded Duncan, promptly, looking frankly into the
teacher’s serious face. The boy’s expression was serious too, except as
to the eyes. In them gleamed but half suppressed a glint of fun.
“Where were you?”
“Here.”
“Did any one see you here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“Sam Archer.”
“His evidence might satisfy me, but not others. It is conceivable that
a room-mate should feel in duty bound to defend his friend at the
expense of a lie. Did no one else see you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“The man who delivers for Jetteau’s laundry, a short, red-faced fellow.
We call him Pete.”
Dr. Leighton wrote in his book: “Pete, Jetteau’s laundry.” “I wish it
had been a better witness,” he said regretfully.
“There was a better witness,” said Duncan, his satisfaction now
breaking forth into a broad grin, “Mr. Sedgwick.”
Dr. Leighton closed his notebook with a snap. “Did he see you here?” he
demanded eagerly.
“Yes, sir. He came a little before eight to invite Sam to supper the
next day.” Duncan’s face took on a rueful look as he added, “I forgot
to tell Sam until this morning.”
“You ought to have given me his name in the beginning.” Dr. Leighton
spoke reprovingly, but with evident relief.
“Mr. Sedgwick came last,” answered Duncan, demurely. “I was giving the
witnesses in exact order.”
Dr. Leighton laughed, a frank, natural, unprof-like laugh. “You always
were a joker, Duncan, but take care how you joke with the faculty. Some
of us don’t understand jokes.”
Duncan grinned in silent comprehension.
“But why didn’t you tell this to Mr. Alsop?” pursued Dr. Leighton, now
serious again. “It Would have saved all this misunderstanding.”
“He didn’t give me any chance,” said Duncan. “He spent all his time
trying to make me confess I’d done what I hadn’t done.”
“But you prevented Sam from testifying.”
“Yes, I did,” declared Duncan, stoutly. “As Alsop was so sure I was
bad, I thought he might as well find out the truth himself. I hoped it
would come hard, for he’s treated me dirty mean.”
“How has he treated you meanly?” asked Dr. Leighton, quietly.
“Lots of ways. For one thing, he’s kept me on probation three weeks for
throwing water out the window, when the fellow who started the thing
only got one.”
“Go and get Archer,” commanded Dr. Leighton.
“Was Peck here Saturday night?” asked the instructor, as the two boys
returned.
“Yes, sir,” answered Sam, eagerly. “He was here the whole evening from
the time I came in a little after eight. We both went to bed about
eleven. He was no more in Boston than I was.”
“One thing more, Peck,” said the teacher, turning abruptly on Duncan.
“Where were you on Saturday afternoon?”
Duncan’s countenance fell. “Knocking around,” he answered cautiously.
“That’s indefinite. You were not at dinner.”
“No, sir. I got my dinner at McLane’s at about five.”
“And before five?”
Peck hesitated, looked at his room-mate, then out the window, then at
his room-mate again, and at last into Dr. Leighton’s face.
“I’d rather not tell you; that is, officially. I’ll tell you
personally, if you like. I didn’t do anything bad.”
“Personally then, if it must be,” said the instructor.
“I went to Hampton Beach to see the surf.”
“What!”
“I went down on the one o’clock car and came back on it. I walked up
from the power-house.”
Dr. Leighton was silent, while Duncan shifted nervously from foot to
foot, and wondered wildly whether he had made the great mistake of
being confidential with an untrustworthy prof. Dr. Leighton, however,
understood clearly the distinction intended; he had agreed to receive
Duncan’s confession, not as a member of the faculty, but as a friend of
the confessor. Officially he could take no cognizance of the affair. He
must speak as a friend and adviser, or not at all.
“Duncan,” he said with slow seriousness, “in going to Hampton you
were leaving town without permission just as much as if you had gone
to Boston, as Mr. Alsop thought you did. That Mr. Alsop treated you
unfairly, or that your visit was for an innocent purpose, is no excuse
whatever for the act. You broke a rule on which the school wisely
insists, and the punishment for which you well knew. In that you were
totally wrong.”
“Yes, sir,” said Duncan, humbly.
“You understand that if your absence is discovered and the fact brought
before the faculty, I cannot say a word in your defence?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now I want you to promise, and promise honestly, that for the rest of
the year you will try to keep well within the school rules.”
“I will, sir.”
“Good!” Dr. Leighton held out his hand, and turned to go. At the door
he spoke again. “One more word of advice--as a friend. You have the
advantage over Mr. Alsop in this Boston affair. Use it to come to a
better understanding with him, and not to annoy him. Remember that
there is a very weak spot in your own armor.”
When the teacher was gone, the two boys remained for a time in silence.
Duncan’s malicious joy in the prospect of Mr. Alsop’s humiliation had
given place to a serious mood. “Leighton’s a square man!” he said at
length. “You’d do right for a man like him when you’d rather do wrong;
while as for Alsop, why, you’d do wrong for him when you’d rather do
right, just to spite him.” And therein Duncan Peck showed a knowledge
of the essential traits of an inspiring teacher which is rarely
possessed by school trustees.
Later in the day Mr. Alsop came to apologize for his error, and the
interview left a pleasant impression with both participants. Duncan
had special reason to be satisfied with it, as the instructor, to make
amends for his false accusation, removed the annoying probation.
Through Dr. Leighton’s influence the special committee made no report
to the faculty, and Mr. Alsop was spared the pain of an official
verdict on his blunder.