The boys all stood up in a line. "I will look at 'em, sir," White
said; "but, as I have told you, I should not know the man as I
bought that book from, from Adam. Anyhow none of these little ones
couldn't be he. If it weren't a man, he were as big as a man. You
don't suppose an honest tradesman would buy an expensive book like
that from a kid."

So saying he placed a pair of horn spectacles on his nose and walked
round the line.

"I don't see any one here whose face I ever see before as far as
I knows; but bless you, the man as I bought it of might have had
hair all over his face, and I be none the wiser looking at him
across that counter of mine in the dark."

"Thank you," Mr. Porson said; "then it is of no use troubling you
further. I have got my book back; but I confess that this affords
me but small gratification in comparison to that which I should
feel if I could unravel this mystery."

The discovery of the book reopened the interest in the matter, and
nothing else was talked of that evening in the playground.

"Ripon," Ned said, putting his arm in that of the head boy, "I want
to tell you a thing that has been in my mind for the last three
weeks; mind, I don't say that there's anything in it, and I hate
to think harm of any one. There is another thing; he and I ain't
good friends. If it hadn't been for that I should have spoken to
you before; but I was afraid that it would look like a piece of
dirty spite on my part; but I do think now that as head boy you