“I--I am,” confessed Jake Shambler and then, amid a storm of hisses which broke out all over the room, the dishonored student hurried out. He had not dared to deny the charge.
“The sneak!” cried several, and more than one arose as though to follow and inflict corporal punishment on one who had trailed the colors of Randall in the dust.
“Silence!” cried Holly Cross, leaping to his feet. “It’s bad enough without making it worse. Stop that hissing!”
It stopped instantly, and amid a death-like silence Shambler opened the door of the gymnasium, and walked out. He did not look back. No one at Randall saw him again, for he left hurriedly, not even stopping to get his belongings.
For a few moments after the dramatic withdrawal of Shambler, following his practical confession of guilt, no one spoke, and no one seemed to know what to do. Then Wallace, who acted well his part under the trying circumstances, again arose.
“I can’t tell you fellows of Randall how we hated to do this,” he said. “But we felt it to be our duty--our duty toward ourselves as well as toward you and the other colleges.”
“Yes, I--I guess it had to be done,” admitted Holly, sorrowfully.
“I suppose there is no doubt about it--the charge of professionalism,” suggested Dan Woodhouse gently.
“None whatever, I’m sorry to say,” went on Wallace. “The first intimation I had was when Jack Pendleton and Hal Durkin, two of our players, spoke to me about it, after they saw Shambler, the other day. He goes by that name now, but he played as a professional under the name of Jacobs.”
“As soon as Durkin and Pendleton told me their suspicions I began to make inquiries,” went on Wallace, “and I soon found that they were right. Here is a picture of the professional nine with which Shambler played,” and he held up a sporting paper, with a black ink mark around the left-fielder. The boys crowded up to look at it, and recognized Shambler at once.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Tom, “that’s the same paper that we saw Shambler have in the reading room one day--the paper that he tore a picture from! It was his own likeness, and he was afraid we’d recognize him.”
“I guess there’s nothing else to be said,” admitted Holly with a sigh. “I suppose I needn’t assure you Exter fellows that we knew nothing of this,” he added quickly. “We never would have admitted Shambler to the contests if we had dreamed of such a charge hanging over him.”