k that sot me to suspicionin'
them two, and I kind o' says to myself it was my duty to the school to
detect around a mite and find out what was goin' on. They didn't like
Teeny-bits at all--not at all. They had it in for Teeny-bits (for some
reason old Jerry added an l to Findley Holbrook's nickname) from the
very start, and one night when I was standin' in a dark corner of the
corridor I heared Bassett sayin' he'd get even with him. And then after
the money and contraptions begun to disappear from the rooms I
overheared 'em talkin' again and what they says, Doctor, was this: 'I
got 'em in there all right. Now all you need to do is write the letter
on your father's typewriter. No one'll know.'"

"Who said that?" demanded Doctor Wells.

"Them two birds I'm tellin' yer about,--Bassett, the feller they called
the Whirlwind, and Campbell. Now I ain't no reg'lar detecative, Doctor,
but I got my _ijeers_, and that sot me to thinkin' hard and I knew
somethin' uncommon suspicious was goin' on. A friend o' mine who was
kinder detecatin' round as my assistant, you might say, slid down a
fire-escape rope about that time and climbed into Campbell's room, but
he didn't find nothin' and come away empty-handed."

"Who was that friend of yours?" asked Doctor Wells. "Was it Teeny-bits?"

"Now, Doctor," said old Jerry, "I ain't aimin' to keep anythin' back
twixt you'n me, but there's certain things, you understan', that I
can't--it wan't Teeny-bits----but further'n that----"

"All right, Jerry," said the Head. "I respect your point of view. Go on
with your story."

"Well," said Jerry, "this friend of mine come to me this mornin' and
says that Teeny-bits got accused of stealin' them things from the boys
and that somehow or other all those gold trinkets and contraptions got
found under his closet floor, and I wanter tell you, Doctor, that this
Teeny-bits _didn't do it_ and that them two bad birds, Campbell and
Bassett, was at the bottom of all this deviltry, and there ain't been
two sich underhanded, reckless, _good-for-nothin'_ fellers in this
school sence I took position here twenty year ago."

"Jerry," said the Doctor, "I value your judgment and I thank you for
coming to me in this frank way and giving me the benefit of your ideas."

The interview was over. Old Jerry left the office of the Head mumbling
to himself: "I got my ijeers and sometimes, by gorry, they's _uncommon_
ijeers."

While Jerry had been talking with the Head,