And, moreover, there was of flour on his person not a trace.

“Great Scott!” I said.

It was a case of the sunken road, after all. But, dash it, how could I have been expected to take into consideration the possibility that this cove, head master though he was, would have had the cold nerve to walk into Sippy’s private office instead of pushing in a normal and orderly manner through the public door?

He raised the nose, and focused me over it.

“Yes?”

“I was looking for old Sippy.”

“ Mr. Sipperley has not yet arrived.”

He spoke with a good deal of pique, seeming to be a man who was not used to being kept waiting.