“I’ve got it!” he announced jubilantly. “It’s all right.”
“Got what?” asked Ben, staring blankly. The face which for the last forty-eight hours had reflected nothing but spleen now shone with satisfaction.
Dunn flourished a square white envelope. “My invitation for the Fridays. It was just delayed.”
“Good for you!” exclaimed Cable. “I congratulate you,” purred Mrs. Adams. Hardie smiled, but said nothing; Ben Tracy continued to stare, puzzled to find that some good angel had relieved him of his unwelcome task.
After dinner Dunn drew Ben into the corner of the general room, and poured fervent expressions of gratitude into his ear. “Talbot and Hardie thought they were going to get me stung,” he exclaimed, “but they didn’t succeed. I had some friends myself! You’ve helped me in this thing, all right, Benny, and I won’t forget it!”
“I haven’t done anything,” protested Ben, weakly, “at least nothing worth while.”
“It’s worth a lot to me. I’ll get even with you for it some day,—and I’ll get even with that sucker, Hardie, too; he’s put those fellows against me.”
Dunn’s first step in getting even with Hardie was taken that very evening, and the method of it showed that some of Jason’s brain cells were more highly developed than those on which he relied in the preparation of lessons.
Just before bedtime he knocked at Roger’s door. “Hello!” he cried, putting his head into the room. “Will you give me a lift on this confounded Virgil?”
“Certainly,” answered Roger. “Come in—. Doesn’t your trot tell you about it?” he added with a sly grin. Dunn still adhered to the theory that the literal translation affords an excellent short cut to proficiency in an ancient language. The twenties and thirties that he received on examinations were fully offset, Dunn maintained, by the great success of his daily recitations. He always knew what the Latin ought to say, anyway; he never made any crazy blunders such as Redfield perpetrated.