CHAPTER VI
One of the Fallen
For a few moments Drayne hung about outside, irresolute. Thenhis native shrewdness asserted itself.
"Not to go in, after having been seen here in the yard would beto confess whatever anyone wants to charge," muttered Phin. "Ofcourse I'll go in. And I'll just stand there and look more andmore astounded every time that anyone says anything. Brass,Phin---brass! Oh, I'd like to see anyone down me!"
So, with all the swagger he could put on, this young BenedictArnold of the school stepped into the Board room. As he entered,the clerk of the Board hastened toward him.
"Step into this anteroom at the side, Mr. Drayne, until you'recalled," the clerk directed. "There will be some routine businessto be transacted first. Then, I believe, the Board has a fewquestions it desires to ask you."
Left by himself, the young man began to be a good bit frightened.He was brave enough in matters requiring only physical courage.But in this instance the culprit knew that he had been guiltyof a contemptibly mean act, and the knowledge of it made a moralcoward of him.
"What are they doing? Trying to sentence, me to solitary confinement?"wondered the young man, when minute after minute went by withoutany call for him. In the Board room he could hear the droningof voices.
"And that Dick Prescott is out there, sitting at a reporter'stable, ready to take in all that happens," muttered Phin savagely."Won't he enjoy himself, though?"
At last it seemed to Phin as though a hush fell over those inthe next room. But it was only that voices had been much lowered.
Then a door opened, the clerk looking in and calling:
"Mr. Drayne, will you come before the Board now?"
Phin passed into the larger apartment. Seated in one chair wasDr. Thornton; in another chair Mr. Morton. And Dick Prescottwas there, but gathering up his writing materials as though aboutto go.
The chairman waited in silence until Prescott had passed out ofthe Board room. After the clerk had closed the door the chairmanannounced:
"The Board is now in executive session. Dr. Thornton, we willlisten to the matter which we understand you wish to bring beforeus for consideration."
Composedly Dr. Thornton stepped to the edge of the table, standingthere, resting his left hand on the table as he began to speak.
In simple words, without any visible emotion, the High Schoolprincipal stated what he understood of the receipt of copies ofthe football signal code by the captains of rival football elevens.
Next Mr. Morton took the stand, so to speak, and went much moreinto detail. He told what the reader already knows, producingseveral of the copies returned by the honorable captains of otherschool teams.
Then Mr. Morton put in evidence, with these copies of the code,copies of business letters received from Drayne's father, andpresumably written on the Drayne office machine.
"If you examine these exhibits, gentlemen, I think you will agreethat the betrayed code and the business letters were written onone and the same machine. The use of the magnifying glass makesit even more plain."
Then Mr. Morton sat down.
"Now, young Mr. Drayne, what have you to say?" demanded the presidingofficer.
"Why should I say anything, sir?" demand Drayne, with an impudentassumption of swaggering ease.
"Then you admit the truth of the charges, Mr. Drayne?"
"I do not."
"Then you must really have something to say."
"I have heard a charge made against me. I am waiting to haveit proved."
"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that these copiesof the code were written on your father's office machine?"
"I do not, sir. But, if it be true, is that any proof that Imade those copies of the signal code? Is it argued that I alonehave access to the typewriter in my father's office. For thatmatter, if I have an enemy in the High School and I must haveseveral---wouldn't it be possible for that enemy, or several ofthem, to slyly break into my father's office and use that particulartypewriting machine?"
This was confidently delivered, and it made an undoubted impressionon at least two or three members of the Board. But now Mr. Mortonbroke in, quietly:
"I thought some such attempt as this might be made. So I waiteduntil I saw what the young man's line of defense might be. Hereis an envelope in which one of the copies was received by thecaptain of a rival football team. You will note that the sender,while understanding something about the use of a type machine,was plainly a novice in directing an envelope on the typewriter.So he addressed this envelope in handwriting. Here is the envelopein question, and here is one of Mr. Drayne's school examinationpapers, also in his own handwriting. I will ask the members ofthe Board to examine both."
There was silence, while the copies passed from hand to hand,Drayne losing color at this point.
"Be brassy!" he whispered to himself. "You'll pull through, Phin,old boy."
"I am sorry to say, Mr. Drayne, that the evidence appears to beagainst you," declared the chairman slowly.
"It may, sir," returned the boy, "but it isn't conclusive evidence."
"Have you anything more to say, Mr. Morton?" asked the chairman,looking at the submaster.
"Plenty, Mr. Chairman, if the Board will listen to me."
"Proceed, Mr. Morton."
The football coach thereupon launched into a swiftly spoken tiradeagainst the "brand of coward and sneak" who would betray his schoolin such a fashion. Without naming Phin, Mr. Morton analyzed themotives and the character of such a sneak, and he did it mercilessly,although in the most parliamentary language. Nor did he looktoward the boy, but Phin was squirming under the lash, his facealternately red or ghastly.
"For such a scoundrel," continued Mr. Morton, "there is no hopegreater than the penitentiary! He is fit for nothing else. Sucha traitor would betray his best friend, or his country. Sucha sneak would be dead to all feelings of generosity. The smallestmeannesses must envelop his soul. Why, sir, the sender of thesecopies of the signal code was so mean, so small minded, so sneakingand so utterly selfish"---how Phin squirmed in his seat!---"that,in sending the envelopes through the mail he was not even manenough to pay full postage. Four cents was the postage requiredfor each envelope, but this small-souled sneak, this ungenerousleech actually made the receivers pay half of the postage on 'due-postage'stamps."
"I didn't!" fairly screamed red-faced Phin, leaping up out ofhis chair. "I stuck a four-cent stamp on each envelope myself!I remem-----"
Of a sudden he stopped in his impetuous burst of language. Agreat hush fell in the room. Phin felt himself reeling with anew fright.
"Then," demanded Mr. Morton, in a very low voice, his face white,"why did you deny having sent out these envelopes containing thecopies of the code?"
There was a shuffling of feet. Two or three of the Board laughedharshly.
"Oh, well!" burst almost incoherently from the trapped boy. "Whenyou employ such methods as these you make a fellow tell on himself!"
All his 'brass' was gone now. He looked, indeed, a most pitiableobject as he stood there, his lower jaw drooped and his cheekstwitching.
"I think you have said about all, Mr. Drayne, that it is necessaryfor you to say," interposed the chairman. "Still, in the interestof fair play we will allow you to make any further statements thatyou may wish to make. Have you anything to offer?"
"No!" he uttered, at last, gruffly.
At a sign from the chairman the clerk stepped silently over, tookPhin by one elbow, and led him to the door. Phin passed on outof the building, stumbling blindly. He got home, somehow, andinto bed.
In the morning, however, even a sneak is braver.
"What can they do to me, anyway?" muttered Phin, as he dressed."I didn't break any of the laws of the state! All anyone cando is to cut me. I'll show 'em all how little I care for theircontempt."
So it was not wholly in awe that Phin Drayne entered the generalassembly room the next morning, a
few minutes before opening time.Several of the students greeted him pleasantly enough. Phinwas quick to conclude that the news had not leaked anyway, beyondthe members of the football squad.
Then came the opening of the session. The singing books lay onthe desks before the students. Instead, however, of calling outthe page on which the morning's music would be found, Dr. Thorntonheld his little gavel in his hand, after giving a preliminaryrap or two on his desk.
"I have something to say to the students of the school this morning,"began Dr. Thornton, in a low but steady voice. "It is somethingwhich, I am happy to state, I have never before been called uponto say.
"One of the most valuable qualities in any man or woman is loyalty.All of us know, from our studies in history and literature, manyconspicuous and noble examples of loyalty. We have also, in ourmind's eye, some examples of the opposite qualities, disloyaltyand treachery. Outside of sacred history one of the most conspicuousexamples of betrayal was that of Benedict Arnold."
Every boy and girl now had his eyes turned fixedly on the oldprincipal. Outside of the football squad no student had any ideawhat was coming. Phin tried to look wholly unconscious.
Dr. Thornton spoke a little more on the meanness of treacheryand betrayal. Then, looking straight over at the middle of thethird aisle on the boys' side of the room, the principal commanded:
"Mr. Drayne, stand by your desk!"
Phin was up, hardly knowing how he accomplished the move. Everypair of eyes in the room was focused on him.
"Mr. Drayne," continued the principal, and now there was a steelyglitter of contempt in the old man's eyes, "you were displeasedbecause you did not attain to as high honors on the football elevenas you had hoped. In revenge you made copies of the code signalsof the team, and mailed a copy to the captain of nearly everyteam against which Gridley High School is to play this year."
There came, from all parts of the room, a gasp of incredulousamazement.
"Your infamy, your treachery and betrayal, Mr. Drayne, weretraced back to you," continued the principal. "You were forcedto admit it, last night, before the Board of Education. ThatBoard has passed sentence in your case. Mr. Drayne, you are foundutterly unfit to associate with the decent manhood and womanhoodto be found in the student body of this High School. By the decisionof the Board you are now expelled from this school. You willtake your books and belongings and leave instantly. You willnever presume to enter through the doors of this school again.Go, sir!"
From Phin came an angry snarl of defiance. He tried to shoutout, to tell the principal and his late fellow students how little,or less than little, he cared about their opinions.
But the words stuck in his throat. Ere he could try again, ahiss arose from one quarter of the room. The hiss grew and swelled.Phin realized, though he dared not look about him any longer,that the hissing came as much from the girls as from the boys.
Drayne did not attempt to bend over his desk. Instead, he marchedswiftly down the half of the aisle, then past the platform towardthe door.
"Mr. Drayne," called Dr. Thornton, "you have not taken your books,or paper or other desk materials."
"I leave them, sir," shouted Phin, above the tumult of hissing,"for the use of some of your many pauper students."
Then he went out, slamming the door after him. He darted downto the basement, then waited before the locker door until oneof the monitors came down, unlocked the door, and allowed Phinto get his hat. But the monitor never looked at him, or spoke.
Once out of the building, Phin could keep back the choking soband tears no longer. Stealing down a side street, where he wouldhave to pass few people, Phin gave way to his pent-up shame.Yet in it all there was nothing of repentance. He was angrywith himself---in a fiendish rage toward others.
Afterwards, he learned that the books and other contents of hisdesk were burned in the school yard at recess, to the singingof a dirge. But, even for the purpose of making a bonfire ofhis books the students would not touch the articles with theirhands. They coaxed the janitor to find a pair of tongs, and withthis implement Phin's books and papers were conveyed to the purifyingblaze.
Behind the door in the privacy of his own room Phin Drayne shookhis fist at the surrounding air.
"I have one mission in life, now, anyway!" raged the boy. "I'vegot some cruel scores to pay. You, Dick Prescott, shall comein for a large share of the payment! No matter how long I haveto wait and plan, or what I have to risk, you shan't get awayfrom me!"