Frank Watson was passing at the time, but neither by look nor word did he show that he was concerned, though Ned had gazed in his direction, and had made his voice purposely loud.
“Do you mean him?” asked Newt Ackerson, nodding toward Frank.
“I’m not saying all I mean,” retorted Ned.
“No, you’d better not,” cautioned Jerry. “Never mind, we’ve got to take our medicine.”
“More leave-stopping, I suppose,” groaned Bob.
“If you’re not suspended, you’ll be getting off lucky,” commented Ted Newton.
While the other students hurried, more or less willingly, to their different lectures and classrooms, Ned, Bob and Jerry strolled over toward the office of the president.
They were admitted by Dr. Cole’s secretary, a young man studying for the ministry, who ushered them into the office, and gave them chairs. The three chums did not feel much like talking, so they sat in glum silence, waiting for Dr. Cole to come in. They were beginning to think their offence was graver than they had imagined it. Suspension had not occurred to them. But, on the other hand, they had not figured on being found out. Something was wrong.
“Frank might have heard us talking about it from his room,” said Ned in a low voice. “His transom is right opposite yours, Jerry, and voices carry easily in that corridor, I’ve noticed. It’s a regular sound-box.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Jerry said. “We’re found out, that’s sure.”
“And I’ll find out who squealed,” declared Ned, taking the card out of his pocket to gaze at it. Then Dr. Cole came in, and Ned quickly put away the bit of evidence.
“Young gentlemen, before I say what I intend to, I wish to be perfectly fair and just to you,” began the president. “Did you, or did you not put the picture on the flagpole. Answer me on your honor as gentlemen and students at Boxwood Hall.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Jerry spoke in a low voice.
Ned just ached to ask who had been the informant, but he knew he did not dare.
Dr. Cole seemed to be thinking deeply, and then he began to speak.
He gave the boys a straight-from-the-shoulder talk--a good, manly lecture, in which he explained to them why he regarded their offense seriously. They might have played other pranks that would not have had such a possible effect as the irreparable damage of the founder’s picture. If that had been torn it would have been a grave loss.