s of the code,
copies of business letters received from Drayne's father, and
presumably written on the Drayne office machine.

"If you examine these exhibits, gentlemen, I think you will agree
that the betrayed code and the business letters were written on
one and the same machine. The use of the magnifying glass makes
it even more plain."

Then Mr. Morton sat down.

"Now, young Mr. Drayne, what have you to say?" demanded the presiding
officer.

"Why should I say anything, sir?" demand Drayne, with an impudent
assumption 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 have
it proved."

"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that these copies
of the code were written on your father's office machine?"

"I do not, sir. But, if it be true, is that any proof that I
made those copies of the signal code? Is it argued that I alone
have access to the typewriter in my father's office. For that
matter, if I have an enemy in the High School and I must have
several---wouldn't it be possible for that enemy, or several of
them, to slyly break into my father's office and use that particular
typewriting machine?"

This was confidently delivered, and it made an undoubted impression
on at least two or three members of the Board. But now Mr. Morton
broke in, quietly:

"I thought some such attempt as this might be made. So I waited
until I saw what the young man's line of defense might be. Here
is an envelope in which one of the copies was received by the
captain 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 envelope
in question, and here is one of Mr. Drayne's school examination
papers, also in his own handwriting. I will ask the members of
the 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 be
against 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?"