Colonel Silsbee was much surprised and perplexed. He could not believe that Brightly had deliberately falsified the record. The lad had always been scrupulously honest. He questioned Brede and Finkelton closely, but they gave him no further information. Finally he said,--
"Brightly shall not be condemned without a hearing. Whatever his faults may have been of late, I cannot credit the fact that he has been guilty of so gross a misdemeanor as these papers would seem to indicate. We will call him in and hear what he has to say."
The school was gathered in evening session, and unusual quiet rested on the assembly, when Colonel Silsbee appeared at the door of his office and summoned Brightly. The suspended officer laid aside his book, and walked up the aisle and across the open space by the desk with a smile on his face.
He had quite expected to be called. He had felt sure that Finkelton would not be capable of making up the reports. Now it had proved so. They were in a snarl, and needed him to assist them in the unravelling.
The idea seemed to please him greatly. He closed the office-door behind him and advanced to the table at which the principal and the two cadets were sitting. His first glance revealed to him that something more important and more serious than the disentangling of reports had occasioned his presence.
"Brightly," he said, "my attention has been called to the fact that erasures have been made opposite to your name in the reports which have, until recently, been in your possession. It is apparent that large balances on the demerit side have been changed to small ones in your favor. I do not ask for an explanation from you, as that would seem to prejudge you. I only ask whether the balance as it now stands on the general roll is the true one. Your simple assertion as a gentleman and a soldier will decide the matter to my satisfaction. You may examine the papers."
He looked from one to the other of the persons present in unfeigned astonishment. Beginning to recover his presence of mind, he took up the papers and examined them. Surely enough, there was the erasure, and there the substitution. The work had not been neatly done, either. The original figures were still discernible.