“Ah, Fairchild, Doctor Merton would like to see you in the office,
please.”
Mr. Crane looked at Kid so peculiarly as he gave the message that had
the latter entertained any doubt as to the reason for the summons such
a doubt would have been instantly dispelled. Kid experienced a sinking
of the heart as he muttered “Yes, sir,” and turned toward the Doctor’s
sanctum. Well, it had to be faced! Probably the Doctor had had a reply
to that letter and the worst had come. It was all well enough to tell
Nan that he hadn’t said a word about his people losing their money, but
the story wouldn’t serve with the Doctor, who drew a very fine line
between truth and falsehood, and who maintained that an untruth could
be implied as well as spoken. Kid’s feet dragged all the way to the
office, and when he was outside the door, which happened to be closed,
he stood there for several moments listening to the loud and irregular
thumping of his heart and wishing ever so hard for the deck of that
merchantman! Then he summoned his courage and knocked. And then, in
response to a cheerful “Come in!” he opened the door and entered.
The Doctor was seated at his broad-topped desk, a shiny mahogany desk
it was, piled high with books and papers and all sorts of business-like
objects; in short, a desk to dispel the last particle of assurance in
the culprit. But Kid, with a supreme effort, summoned the cherub-look
to his countenance and faced his fate.
The Doctor, who was reading the Whittier _Standard_, laid aside the
paper and looked across the desk at Kid. There was nothing formidable
in that look. Rather it was friendly and smiling, and Kid would
have taken courage had he not known that the Doctor possessed a
disconcerting habit of smiling before he smote. Kid’s round blue eyes
gazed innocently at the Doctor.
“You――you sent for me, sir?” he asked in a wee small voice.
“Yes, James.” The Doctor’s smile vanished and he frowned portentously
across the litter of books and papers. “Sit down, please.” He nodded
at a chair, and Kid, wondering, seated himself on the edge of it. Never
before had he been invited to seat himself in the Doctor’s office.
Plainly the interview was to be both protracted and painful! “Well,
sir,” continued the Principal, “and what’s this you’ve been doing?”
Kid tried to retain his look of cherubic innocence, but it faded away
and he lowered his head.
“I――I――nothing, sir, if you please.”
“Nothing! So you call it nothing, do you? I should say it was a good
deal. Do you perform these brilliant feats very often, James?”
“No, sir,” murmured Kid miserably. “And I won’t ever do it again, sir.”
To his surprise the Doctor went off into a peal of laughter. Kid looked
and stared. Of course the laughter was ironic, but it didn’t sound so.
Was it possible that the Doctor was going to view the affair in its
humorous aspect? Kid found courage to grin faintly.
“Won’t ever do it again, eh?” chuckled the Doctor finally. “Well, I
guess that is so. You probably will never have the chance, James.”
Kid’s heart stopped beating for an instant. Expelled! He was to be
sent home! What would his father say? And his mother? The tears began
to creep up toward his eyes; he felt them coming. And he didn’t care!
“No, one doesn’t have an opportunity to do a thing like that more than
once, James,” went on the Doctor, smiling that peculiar smile. “In
fact, James, a good many of us never have the chance to be a hero even
once. Or perhaps we see the chance and miss it, eh?”
Kid stared bewilderedly.
“I suppose your modesty kept you from speaking of the incident, James?
Well, modesty is very becoming in a hero, my boy. And if I am to judge
by what the paper tells me you were undoubtedly a hero. How does it
feel to be a hero, James?”
Kid’s mouth was wide open but no sound came from it.
“Embarrassing, is it?” the Doctor laughed. “Well, I’ll spare your
blushes. Maybe, though, you’d like to see what the _Standard_ has to
say about you?” The Doctor picked the paper from the corner of the desk
and held it out. Kid took it mechanically and his eyes followed the
direction of the Doctor’s finger. But for a moment he saw nothing.
Then, quite suddenly, the black type leaped at him and he was reading
the headlines: