been swearing at him ever since."

"I noticed that he stayed in after all the rest last night," said
Barker.

"Did he? By Jove, that looks bad."

"Has any one charged him with it?" asked Duncan.

"Yes," answered one of the group: "but he's as proud about it as
Lucifer, and is furious if you mention it to him. He says we ought to
know him better than to think him capable of such a thing."

"And quite right, too," said Duncan. "If he did it, he's done something
totally unlike what one would have believed possible of him."

The various items of evidence were put together, and certainly they
seemed to prove a strong case against Eric. In addition to the
probabilities already mentioned, it was found that the ink used was of a
violet color, and a peculiar kind, which Eric was known to patronise;
and not only so, but the wafers with which the paper had been attached
to the board were yellow, and exactly of the same size with some which
Eric was said to possess. How the latter facts had been discovered,
nobody exactly knew, but they began to be very generally whispered
throughout the school.

In short, the almost universal conviction among the boys proclaimed that
he was guilty, and many urged him to confess it at once, and save the
school from the threatened punishment. But he listened to such
suggestions with the most passionate indignation.