As he entered, the clerk of the Board hastened toward him.
"Step into this anteroom at the side, Mr.Drayne, until you're called," the clerk directed.

"There will be some routine business to be transacted first.

Then, I believe, the Board has a few questions it desires to ask you." Left by himself, the young man began to be a good bit frightened.
He was brave enough in matters requiring only physical courage.
But in this instance the culprit knew that he had been guilty of a contemptibly mean act, and the knowledge of it made a moral coward of him.
"What are they doing?
Trying to sentence, me to solitary confinement ?" wondered the young man, when minute after minute went by without any call for him.

In the Board room he could hear the droning of voices.
"And that Dick Prescott is out there, sitting at a reporter's table, ready to take in all that happens," muttered Phin savagely.
"Won't he enjoy himself, though ?" At last it seemed to Phin as though a hush fell over those in the next room.

But it was only that voices had been much lowered.
Then a door opened, the clerk looking in and calling: "Mr.Drayne, will you come before the Board now ?" Phin passed into the larger apartment.