se in
his tone and manner as he could affect.

Justice Stott had just gone into an adjacent yard for water for the
Italian, when Grayson answered, with a very sober face, "You know as
well as I do, Benny, and I saw the whole crowd."

"I don't!" exclaimed Benny, in all the desperation of cowardice. "I
didn't do or see--"

"Sh--h!" whispered Grayson, "the Justice is coming back."

Benny turned abruptly and started for home. He felt certain that his
face was telling tales, and that Justice Stott would learn the whole
story if he saw him. There was one comfort, though: it was evident that
Grayson did not want the Justice to know that Benny had taken part in
the affair.

There was a great deal of business transacted by the boys of Laketon
that night. How it all was managed no one could have explained, but it
is certain that before bed-time every boy who had taken part in the
assault on the Italian knew that the man was not dead, but had merely
been stunned and cut by a stone; that Paul Grayson knew who were of the
party that chased the man up the alley. Various plans of getting out of
trouble were in turn suggested and abandoned; but several boys for a
long time insisted that the only chance of safety lay in calling Grayson
out of his boarding-house, and threatening him with the worst whipping
that the boys, all working together, could give. Even this idea was
finally abandoned when Will Palmer suggested that as Grayson boarded
with the teacher, and seemed to be in some sort a friend of his, he
probably would already have told all he knew if he was going to tell at
all. Some consolation might have been got out of a report of Benny's
short interview with Grayson, had Benny thought to give it, but he had,
on reaching home, promptly feigned headache, and gone to bed; so such of
the boys as did not determine to play truant, and so postpone the evil
day, thought bitterly of the morrow as they dispersed to their several
homes.

There was not as much playing as usual in the school yard next morning,
and when the class was summoned into school the teacher had no
difficulty in discovering, by the looks of the various boys, who were
innocent and who guilty. Immediately after calling the roll Mr. Morton
stood up, and said:

"Boys, a great many of you know what I am going to talk about. Usually
your deeds done out of school hours are not for me to notice; but the
cowardly, shameful treatment of that organ-grinder began in the s