e best
thing that ever happened and I'm glad I didn't miss it." Then genial
Snubby held out his hand to Teeny-bits and added: "Ridgley owes you a
lot and I'm _mighty glad_ that the fellows made you captain. Every one
says that you're the man for the job."

Teeny-bits was embarrassed by Snubby's words, for they made it all the
more difficult to say what was in his mind.

"Thanks, Snubby," he said, and paused,--"I came down here because I
wanted to ask you a question that has been bothering me for nearly a
week. You remember last Monday night when we had the mass meeting?"

A queer look came over Snubby's face. "Yes, I remember that night all
right."

"Well," said Teeny-bits, "you know the fellows got me up on the platform
and made me say something, and then, instead of sitting down, I went out
and started to come back to the dormitory. That was about nine o'clock
and no one was stirring on the campus because all the fellows had gone
to the mass meeting."

Teeny-bits was silent for a moment as if waiting for Snubby to say
something, but Snubby only continued to look at him with the same queer
expression of expectation that had come into his face at first mention
of the mass meeting.

"Well," continued Teeny-bits, "you know, something happened. I was
coming along pretty close to Gannett Hall when I saw some one sliding
down a fire-escape rope and getting into Campbell's window. Of course,
that made me think of the things that had been stolen from the fellows'
rooms and so I stepped into the bushes out there behind the dormitory
and waited until the fellow came out and I saw who it was."

"Yes," cried Snubby, whose face had suddenly become red, "and of course
you've been thinking all this time that I was the one who got away with
the money and things?"

"No!" said Teeny-bits. "There's where you're wrong; I haven't been
thinking any such thing. I _know_ that there's some other explanation
and I want you to give it to me, Snubby,--for more reasons than one.
I'll tell you something that I'm sure you don't know. That same night,
Doctor Wells called me over to his office and showed me a letter that
some one had written, saying that _I_ was the one who had stolen the
things."

"That _you_ were the one?" echoed Snubby with a look of amazement.

"Yes," declared Teeny-bits, "that I was the one, and of course I told
Doctor Wells that it wasn't true and he believed me, but it said in that
letter that the things were hidde