the Doctor. It's rather terrible in its way; because if once gets this habit and yields to temptation, his unlimited power, who is safe?"

"It's much more a thing Browne would have done," I said, meaning a particularly hateful roaster who wore pink ties and elastic-sided boots.

Then Peters explained that when alone in the Doctor's study, waiting to give a message to Dr. Dunstan from Mr. Briggs, he chanced to look about, and saw on the mantelpiece Pratt's pencil-sharpener and a pencil in course of being sharpened. The Doctor had evidently put them down there and been called away and forgotten them.

"What did you do?" I inquired of Peters.

"Well, Maydew," he said, "I asked myself what Sherlock would have done"—in confidential moments Peters sometimes spoke of the great Holmes as 'Sherlock'—"and I remembered his wonderful presence of mind. Me would have struck while the iron was hot, as the saying is, and taken the pencil-sharpener there and then."

"By Jove! But you didn't?" I said.

For answer Peters brought the pencil-sharpener out of his waistcoat pocket.

"Are you positive it's Pratt's?" I asked.

"Absolutely certain," he said. "It has the words 'Made in Bavaria' upon it; and, of course, this is a frightfully delicate situation to be in for me.

"Especially if the Doctor asks for it," I said.

"He won't dare," answered Peters; "but I've got a sort of strong feeling against letting anybody know who has done this. On one or two occasions, I believe, Holmes kept the doer of a dark deed a secret—to give him a chance to repent. It seems to me this is a case when I ought to do the same."

"If the Doctor cribs things, I don't see why you should keep it dark," I said; and Peters treated me rather rudely—in fact, very much like Holmes sometimes treats Watson.

"My dear Maydew," he said, "the things you don't see would fill a museum."

"Anyway, you'll have to give Pratt back his pencil-sharpener," I said; and he admitted that this was true. The only thing that puzzled him was how to do it.

But, after all, Peters didn't puzzle long. He was thinking the next morning how to return the pencil-sharpener to Pratt in a mysterious and Sherlock Holmes-like way, when, just after prayers, the Doctor stopped the school and spoke. He said—

"Boys, I have lost something, and though an article of little intrinsic worth, I cannot suffer it to go without making an effort to regain it. I say this for two reasons. The first and least is that the little contrivance so mysteriously spirited from my study is of the greatest service to me; while the second and important reason your own perspicuity may perhaps suggest. Things do not go without hands. Somebody has taken from my study what did not belong to him; and somebody, therefore, at this moment moves among you with an aching heart and a wounded conscience. Let that boy make his peace with God and with me before he closes his eyes; and that no doubt or ambiguity may obscure the details of this event, I will now descend to particulars.

"Not long ago, a kindly friend conveyed to me a new form of pencil-sharpener which he had chanced to find exhibited in a stationer's shop at Plymouth, our great naval port. Knowing that my eyesight is not of the best, he judged this trifle would assist me in the endless task of sharpening pencils, which is not the least among my minor mechanical labours. And he judged correctly. The implement was distinguished by a great simplicity of construction. It consisted, indeed, of one small piece of metal somewhat resembling the first letter of the alphabet. I last saw it upon the mantelpiece in the study. I was actually using it when called away, and on my return forgot the circumstance. But upon retiring last night, the incident reverted to memory while divesting myself of my apparel, and so indispensable had the pencil-sharpener become to me that I resumed my habiliments, lighted a candle, and went downstairs to seek the sharpener. It had disappeared. Now, yesterday several boys came and went, as usual, through the precincts of my private apartments. Furthermore, the Greek Testament class will recollect that we were engaged together in the evening from seven until eight o'clock. I need say no more. The loss is discovered and the loss is proclaimed. I accuse nobody. Many things may have happened to the pencil-sharpener, and if any boy can throw light upon the circumstance let him speak with me to-night after evening chapel. I hope it may be possible to find an innocent solution of my loss; but if one of you has fallen under sudden temptation, and, attracted by the portability and obvious advantages of the instrument, has appropriated it to his own uses, I must warn him that my duty will be to punish as well as pardon. The hand of man, however, is light as compared with the anger of an outraged Deity. If a sinner is cowering among you at this moment, with my pencil-sharpener secreted about his person, let that sinner lose no time, but strengthen his mind to confess his sin, that he may the sooner turn over a new leaf and sin no more."

Then he hooked it to breakfast, and I spoke to Peters. I said—

"This is pretty blue for you."

But he said, far from it. He said—

"On the contrary, Maydew. It's blue for the Doctor; and it shows—what he's always saying to us himself, for that matter—that if you do a wrong thing, you've nearly always got to do another, or perhaps two, to bolster up the first. Sherlock Holmes often finds out one crime owing to the criminal doing another, and no doubt this has happened to the Doctor. He has told a deliberate, carefully planned lie, and a barefaced lie too; because he must know that he stole the thing out of Pratt's desk. Anyhow, my course is clear."

I said I was glad to hear that, because it didn't look at all clear to me. Then Peters said—

"I, personally, have got nothing to do with the Doctor's wickedness in the matter. In my opinion that is Pratt's affair."

But I felt pretty sure Pratt wouldn't bother about it.

"Anyway," said Peters, "I now return Pratt his pencil-sharpener, and there my duty as the detective of the case ceases. Sherlock Holmes often did a tremendous deed and only told the way he'd done it to Watson. And so it is here. It is not my work to bring the Doctor to justice, and I'm not going to try to do it."

I said he was right, because, while he was bringing the Doctor to justice, he might get expelled, and that wouldn't be much of a catch for anybody.

So the first thing after morning school we went to Pratt, and Peters put on his Holmes manner and said—

"Well, Pratt, no news of the missing pencil-sharpener, I suppose?"

And Pratt said, "Mine or the Doctor's?"

And Peters said, "Yours."

"Yes, there is," said Pratt; "I found it in my lexicon two days ago. I'd marked a word with it and clean forgotten. So that's all right."

"Not so right as you might think," I said.

But Peters kept his nerve jolly well, and, in fact, was more like Sherlock Holmes at that terrible moment than ever I saw him before or after.