"Adair!"
There was almost a wail in the headmaster's voice. The situation had
suddenly become too much for him. His brain was swimming. That Mike,
despite the evidence against him, should be innocent, was curious,
perhaps, but not particularly startling. But that Adair should inform
him, two minutes after Mr. Downing's announcement of Psmith's
confession, that Psmith, too, was guiltless, and that the real criminal
was Dunster--it was this that made him feel that somebody, in the words
of an American author, had played a mean trick on him, and substituted
for his brain a side order of cauliflower. Why Dunster, of all people?
Dunster, who, he remembered dizzily, had left the school at Christmas.
And why, if Dunster had really painted the dog, had Psmith asserted that
he himself was the culprit? Why--why anything? He concentrated his mind
on Adair as the only person who could save him from impending
brain fever.
"Adair!"
"Yes, sir?"
"What--_what_ do you mean?"
"It _was_ Dunster, sir. I got a letter from him only five minutes ago,
in which he said that he had painted Sammy--Sampson, the dog, sir, for a
rag--for a joke, and that, as he didn't want anyone here to get into a
row--be punished for it, I'd better tell Mr.
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