"And you were one of them?"

"Yes, sir," admitted the young soph, frankly. "I think I had
as much to do with what you term the hoax, sir, as anyone else
had."

"Who were the others?" fired the principal, quickly and sharply.

"I---I beg your pardon, sir. I cannot answer that."

"You can't? Why not, Mr. Prescott?" demanded the principal.

Again the principal launched his most compelling look.

"Because, sir," answered Dick, quietly, and in a tone in which
no sign of disrespect could be detected, "it would strike me as
being dishonorable to drag others into this affair."

"You would consider it dishonorable?" cried Mr. Cantwell, his
face again turning deathly white with inward rage. "_You_, who
admit having had a big hand in what was really an outrage?"

But Dick met and returned the other's gaze composedly.

"The Board of Education, Mr. Cantwell, has several times decided
that one pupil in the public schools cannot be compelled by a
teacher to bear tales that implicate another student. I have
admitted my own share in the joke that has so much displeased
you, but I cannot name any others."