“No, sir, I couldn’t,” returned Sam. “I don’t believe he’ll come again,” he added, looking ruefully at his knuckles, still numb from the blow which had felled the audacious Fish. “I didn’t mean to say anything against anybody. I just wanted to have you know that Birdie—that Fowle—wasn’t in it at all.”
Mr. Alsop felt no disposition to discuss Fowle. Having frequently proclaimed the young man to be the pernicious influence in his domain, he did not like to acknowledge that he had erred. He therefore contented himself with repeating certain hackneyed sentiments as to the responsibility for order in the well and the offended spirit of the school,—and withdrew.
As far as his dormitory master was concerned, Fish certainly possessed a charmed life. When he appeared the next day with the darkly obvious marks of a bruise about his right eye, he had no difficulty in drawing upon Mr. Alsop’s sympathies by his explanation of the flying ring which had struck him in the face in the gymnasium. It did not occur to the instructor to put together the fact of the black eye and Sam’s account of the forcible expulsion of a trespasser.
This example of the unique way in which order was maintained in his well, Mr. Alsop repeated with satisfaction to several of his colleagues, among others to Dr. Leighton.
“And you have no suspicion as to who this rough-houser was?” asked Dr. Leighton.
“None whatever.”
“Have you noticed Fish’s black eye?”
“Yes; he got that in the gymnasium from a flying ring. Bad bruise, wasn’t it?”
“There seems to be a different version about that eye going round the school. They charge it up to some fracas with another boy.”
“They would anyway,” replied Mr. Alsop, sagely. “Boys always joke over a black eye. Fish told me all about it himself.”