"That's the lot, sir," he said, rising.
"Ah. Now come across with me to the headmaster's house. Leave the basket
here. You can carry it back when you return."
"Shall I put back that shoe, sir?"
"Certainly not. I shall take this with me, of course."
"Shall I carry it, sir?"
Mr. Downing reflected.
"Yes, Smith," he said. "I think it would be best."
It occurred to him that the spectacle of a house master wandering abroad
on the public highway, carrying a dirty shoe, might be a trifle
undignified. You never knew whom you might meet on Sunday afternoon.
Psmith took the shoe, and doing so, understood what before had puzzled
him.
Across the toe of the shoe was a broad splash of red paint.
He knew nothing, of course, of the upset tin in the bicycle shed; but
when a housemaster's dog has been painted red in the night, and when, on
the following day, the housemaster goes about in search of a paint
splashed shoe, one puts two and two together. Psmith looked at the name
inside the shoe. It was "Brown bootmaker, Bridgnorth." Bridgnorth was
only a few miles from his own home and Mike's. Undoubtedly it was
Mike's shoe.
"Can you tell me whose shoe that is?" asked Mr.
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