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window that they look on

it as a sort of affectation to go out by the door. I suppose none of

you merchants can give me any idea when the next knockabout

entertainment of this kind is likely to take place?”

 

“I wonder who rang that bell!” said Stone. “Jolly sporting idea.”

 

“I believe it was Downing himself. If it was, I hope he’s satisfied.”

 

Jellicoe, who was appearing in society supported by a stick, looked

meaningly at Mike, and giggled, receiving in answer a stony stare.

Mike had informed Jellicoe of the details of his interview with Mr.

Barley at the “White Boar,” and Jellicoe, after a momentary splutter

of wrath against the practical joker, was now in a particularly

light-hearted mood. He hobbled about, giggling at nothing and at

peace with all the world.

 

“It was a stirring scene,” said Psmith. “The agility with which

Comrade Jellicoe boosted himself down the shoot was a triumph of mind

over matter. He seemed to forget his ankle. It was the nearest thing

to a Boneless Acrobatic Wonder that I have ever seen.”

 

“I was in a beastly funk, I can tell you.”

 

Stone gurgled.

 

“So was I,” he said, “for a bit. Then, when I saw that it was all a

rag, I began to look about for ways of doing the thing really well. I

emptied about six jugs of water on a gang of kids under my window.”

 

“I rushed into Downing’s, and ragged some of the beds,” said Robinson.

 

“It was an invigorating time,” said Psmith. “A sort of pageant. I was

particularly struck with the way some of the bright lads caught hold

of the idea. There was no skimping. Some of the kids, to my certain

knowledge, went down the shoot a dozen times. There’s nothing like

doing a thing thoroughly. I saw them come down, rush upstairs, and be

saved again, time after time. The thing became chronic with them. I

should say Comrade Downing ought to be satisfied with the high state

of efficiency to which he has brought us. At any rate I hope–-”

 

There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and Sharpe, a

member of the senior day-room, burst excitedly in. He seemed amused.

 

“I say, have you chaps seen Sammy?”

 

“Seen who?” said Stone. “Sammy? Why?”

 

“You’ll know in a second. He’s just outside. Here, Sammy, Sammy,

Sammy! Sam! Sam!”

 

A bark and a patter of feet outside.

 

“Come on, Sammy. Good dog.”

 

There was a moment’s silence. Then a great yell of laughter burst

forth. Even Psmith’s massive calm was shattered. As for Jellicoe, he

sobbed in a corner.

 

Sammy’s beautiful white coat was almost entirely concealed by a thick

covering of bright red paint. His head, with the exception of the

ears, was untouched, and his serious, friendly eyes seemed to

emphasise the weirdness of his appearance. He stood in the doorway,

barking and wagging his tail, plainly puzzled at his reception. He was

a popular dog, and was always well received when he visited any of the

houses, but he had never before met with enthusiasm like this.

 

“Good old Sammy!”

 

“What on earth’s been happening to him?”

 

“Who did it?”

 

Sharpe, the introducer, had no views on the matter.

 

“I found him outside Downing’s, with a crowd round him. Everybody

seems to have seen him. I wonder who on earth has gone and mucked him

up like that!”

 

Mike was the first to show any sympathy for the maltreated animal.

 

“Poor old Sammy,” he said, kneeling on the floor beside the victim,

and scratching him under the ear. “What a beastly shame! It’ll take

hours to wash all that off him, and he’ll hate it.”

 

“It seems to me,” said Psmith, regarding Sammy dispassionately through

his eyeglass, “that it’s not a case for mere washing. They’ll either

have to skin him bodily, or leave the thing to time. Time, the Great

Healer. In a year or two he’ll fade to a delicate pink. I don’t see

why you shouldn’t have a pink bull-terrier. It would lend a touch of

distinction to the place. Crowds would come in excursion trains to see

him. By charging a small fee you might make him self-supporting. I

think I’ll suggest it to Comrade Downing.”

 

“There’ll be a row about this,” said Stone.

 

“Rows are rather sport when you’re not mixed up in them,” said

Robinson, philosophically. “There’ll be another if we don’t start off

for chapel soon. It’s a quarter to.”

 

There was a general move. Mike was the last to leave the room. As he

was going, Jellicoe stopped him. Jellicoe was staying in that Sunday,

owing to his ankle.

 

“I say,” said Jellicoe, “I just wanted to thank you again about

that–-”

 

“Oh, that’s all right.”

 

“No, but it really was awfully decent of you. You might have got into

a frightful row. Were you nearly caught?”

 

“Jolly nearly.”

 

“It was you who rang the bell, wasn’t it?”

 

“Yes, it was. But for goodness sake don’t go gassing about it, or

somebody will get to hear who oughtn’t to, and I shall be sacked.”

 

“All right. But, I say, you are a chap!”

 

“What’s the matter now?”

 

“I mean about Sammy, you know. It’s a jolly good score off old

Downing. He’ll be frightfully sick.”

 

“Sammy!” cried Mike. “My good man, you don’t think I did that, do you?

What absolute rot! I never touched the poor brute.”

 

“Oh, all right,” said Jellicoe. “But I wasn’t going to tell any one,

of course.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You are a chap!” giggled Jellicoe.

 

Mike walked to chapel rather thoughtfully.

CHAPTER XLVII

MR. DOWNING ON THE SCENT

 

There was just one moment, the moment in which, on going down to the

junior day-room of his house to quell an unseemly disturbance, he was

boisterously greeted by a vermilion bull terrier, when Mr. Downing was

seized with a hideous fear lest he had lost his senses. Glaring down

at the crimson animal that was pawing at his knees, he clutched at his

reason for one second as a drowning man clutches at a lifebelt.

 

Then the happy laughter of the young onlookers reassured him.

 

“Who—” he shouted, “WHO has done this?”

 

[Illustration: “WHO—” HE SHOUTED, “WHO HAS DONE THIS?”]

 

“Please, sir, we don’t know,” shrilled the chorus.

 

“Please, sir, he came in like that.”

 

“Please, sir, we were sitting here when he suddenly ran in, all red.”

 

A voice from the crowd: “Look at old Sammy!”

 

The situation was impossible. There was nothing to be done. He could

not find out by verbal inquiry who had painted the dog. The

possibility of Sammy being painted red during the night had never

occurred to Mr. Downing, and now that the thing had happened he had no

scheme of action. As Psmith would have said, he had confused the

unusual with the impossible, and the result was that he was taken by

surprise.

 

While he was pondering on this the situation was rendered still more

difficult by Sammy, who, taking advantage of the door being open,

escaped and rushed into the road, thus publishing his condition to all

and sundry. You can hush up a painted dog while it confines itself to

your own premises, but once it has mixed with the great public this

becomes out of the question. Sammy’s state advanced from a private

trouble into a row. Mr. Downing’s next move was in the same direction

that Sammy had taken, only, instead of running about the road, he went

straight to the headmaster.

 

The Head, who had had to leave his house in the small hours in his

pyjamas and a dressing-gown, was not in the best of tempers. He had a

cold in the head, and also a rooted conviction that Mr. Downing, in

spite of his strict orders, had rung the bell himself on the previous

night in order to test the efficiency of the school in saving

themselves in the event of fire. He received the housemaster frostily,

but thawed as the latter related the events which had led up to the

ringing of the bell.

 

“Dear me!” he said, deeply interested. “One of the boys at the school,

you think?”

 

“I am certain of it,” said Mr. Downing.

 

“Was he wearing a school cap?”

 

“He was bare-headed. A boy who breaks out of his house at night would

hardly run the risk of wearing a distinguishing cap.”

 

“No, no, I suppose not. A big boy, you say?”

 

“Very big.”

 

“You did not see his face?”

 

“It was dark and he never looked back—he was in front of me all the

time.”

 

“Dear me!”

 

“There is another matter–-”

 

“Yes?”

 

“This boy, whoever he was, had done something before he rang the

bell—he had painted my dog Sampson red.”

 

The headmaster’s eyes protruded from their sockets. “He—he—what,

Mr. Downing?”

 

“He painted my dog red—bright red.” Mr. Downing was too angry to see

anything humorous in the incident. Since the previous night he had

been wounded in his tenderest feelings. His Fire Brigade system had

been most shamefully abused by being turned into a mere instrument in

the hands of a malefactor for escaping justice, and his dog had been

held up to ridicule to all the world. He did not want to smile, he

wanted revenge.

 

The headmaster, on the other hand, did want to smile. It was not his

dog, he could look on the affair with an unbiased eye, and to him

there was something ludicrous in a white dog suddenly appearing as a

red dog.

 

“It is a scandalous thing!” said Mr. Downing.

 

“Quite so! Quite so!” said the headmaster hastily. “I shall punish the

boy who did it most severely. I will speak to the school in the Hall

after chapel.”

 

Which he did, but without result. A cordial invitation to the criminal

to come forward and be executed was received in wooden silence by the

school, with the exception of Johnson III., of Outwood’s, who,

suddenly reminded of Sammy’s appearance by the headmaster’s words,

broke into a wild screech of laughter, and was instantly awarded two

hundred lines.

 

The school filed out of the Hall to their various lunches, and Mr.

Downing was left with the conviction that, if he wanted the criminal

discovered, he would have to discover him for himself.

 

The great thing in affairs of this kind is to get a good start, and

Fate, feeling perhaps that it had been a little hard upon Mr. Downing,

gave him a most magnificent start. Instead of having to hunt for a

needle in a haystack, he found himself in a moment in the position of

being set to find it in a mere truss of straw.

 

It was Mr. Outwood who helped him. Sergeant Collard had waylaid the

archaeological expert on his way to chapel, and informed him that at

close on twelve the night before he had observed a youth, unidentified,

attempting to get into his house via the water-pipe. Mr. Outwood,

whose thoughts were occupied with apses and plinths, not to mention

cromlechs, at the time, thanked the sergeant with absent-minded

politeness and passed on. Later he remembered the fact � propos

of some reflections on the subject of burglars in mediaeval England,

and passed it on to Mr. Downing as they walked back to lunch.

 

“Then the boy was in your house!” exclaimed Mr. Downing.

 

“Not actually in, as

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