CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
HOW TEMPLETON TURNS A CORNER.
Aspinall was not absent three minutes altogether, but the interval seemed interminable.
Our heroes, as they sat huddled together, pale, defiant, but bewildered, dividing the attention of the meeting with their accuser, thought it a century.

More than once Dick, boiling over, started to his feet and attempted to speak, but every time Mansfield quietly suppressed him, and told him to wait till the proper time came.
Coote was once more racked by doubts as to whether he had really taken the pencil after all.

He was morally certain he had not, but Coote was a youth always open to conviction.
The door opened at last, and Aspinall appeared ushering in the bookseller, who looked like a man who suspected a trap and was prepared to defend himself at the first sign of attack.
He had received a note in the morning from Pledge--of whom he had seen or heard nothing since his visit to the shop a fortnight ago--asking him to be sure to call at the school at 4:30 on a matter of business.
When Aspinall summoned him, he concluded it was to go to Pledge's study.
But when, instead of that, he found himself suddenly ushered into a congregation of the whole school, it was small wonder if he felt bewildered and sniffed treachery.
"Mr Webster," said Mansfield, "Pledge, here, has just been publicly accusing three boys of theft.

He says they have robbed you, and we want you to hear his statement and tell us if it is true.

Please repeat what you have to say, Pledge, in Mr Webster's hearing." The stationer, with inquiring face, turned to Pledge, who, despite some vague doubts which were beginning to disturb his confidence, smiled affably and said-- "Oh, sorry to bring you up, Mr Webster, just at your busy time, but I was telling my friends here about that little affair of the pencil-case, you know, which was stolen from you; and as they don't seem inclined to believe me, I thought the best thing would be for you to tell them about it yourself." The countenance of the bookseller underwent a marvellous transformation as the speech proceeded.