“Oh, a dozen. You can’t tell that way,” answered Bob.
“I’m going to make a try,” declared Ned, vindictively. “I’ve heard that each typewriting machine has some peculiarity, and I may be able to trace this one.
“If I do find out the sneak who gave us away what I won’t do to him won’t be worth doing,” Ned went on. “The idea of spoiling a perfectly good joke this way! It’s a shame, and I’ll wager a lot it was that Frank Watson!”
“There you go again!” cried Jerry. “Jumping at conclusions.”
“I’ll jump on his head if I get a chance,” muttered Ned.
Then they lowered the picture and carried it back to the chapel, amid the grins of their companions and the stern looks of the members of faculty. Such a sacrilege had rarely, if ever before, been committed. Each professor seemed grave and angry, save Professor Snodgrass, and he looked at the boys with sympathy. He would have helped them if he could, but it was beyond his power.
“You may set the portrait down against the wall where it belongs,” announced Dr. Cole. “I will have the janitor hang it later.”
In the prayer that followed, Dr. Cole made reference to the “misguided and rash spirit of youth,” from which he asked that all might be delivered.
“Shut up!” retorted Ned, fiercely. “Don’t I know it!”
It is feared that our heroes--shall I call them that now, I wonder?--did not fully enter into the devotional spirit that morning. Nor, for that matter, did many of the others.
When the chapel exercises were over, Dr. Cole again arose.
“Hopkins, Slade and Baker will be excused from classes to-day,” the president announced, “and they will report at my office in half an hour.”
“Say, you fellows sure have nerve all right!” exclaimed George Fitch, as a group of students gathered about Ned, Bob and Jerry when they came out of chapel.
“But why you wanted to give yourselves away is more than I can figure out,” came from Harry French.
“Getting the picture was sure some nifty little stunt,” commented Chet Randell, “but sticking that card on was only inviting trouble. Did you think they wouldn’t believe it?”
“Say, when you fellows get through talking, I’ll have something to say!” Ned broke in, rather sarcastically. “We did get the picture, I may as well admit that, for I suppose we gave ourselves away in chapel when Proxy made the crack. But we weren’t foolish enough to go and advertise the fact. Some fellow squealed on us, just as some one did at the time of our feed. And when I find out who it was I’m going to make it so hot for him he’ll leave college.”