“I don’t see why you should have a privilege which the others have not; and I don’t see why I should sacrifice my time to save a student from the results of his own neglect,” said Mr. Alsop, tartly. Like many a serious but narrow-minded pedagogue, he was taking the wholesale failure of the class as a personal affront. He felt his dignity struck at almost as if the boys had deliberately refused to learn. To Sam Archer, moreover, he owed no favor.
“It’s a slight matter,” pleaded Sam, foolishly, “and it’s going to keep me from going home. I got permission from the office three days ago.”
“It is not a slight matter,” declared Mr. Alsop, sharply. “I beg to differ with you. Neglect of work is never a slight matter. Permissions from the office are always provisional. You will come with the rest. I have no extra time to give you.”
Sam withdrew, crestfallen and indignant. He understood that he was paying the penalty for the misunderstanding of the evening before, and also for the morning’s shock to the teacher’s self-esteem. The unfairness of it rankled deep. The loss of thirty-six hours at home, the breaking of the engagement with his mother, the abandonment of his plan of reunion with his old mates—all counted as nothing in the balance when weighed against Mr. Alsop’s five minutes and ruffled dignity. The worst of it was the fact that there was no appeal. The principal was away on leave of absence for six months. Every teacher was autocrat in his own courses. To resist would be to collide with the whole machinery of government of an institution which prided itself on expelling annually more boys than any other school in the land. Between enduring in silence, and resorting to entreaties and flattery,—the only alternatives,—Sam did not hesitate a moment. The one he could bear, the other he would not stoop to.
On the way down to the telegraph office, where he sent a brief message to his mother, announcing that he could not get away, Sam drew an angry comparison between Mr. Alsop’s methods and those of certain other instructors: Dr. Leighton in Greek had discovered his pupil’s weakness on the verb and offered to give special help at any time the boy chose to call at his room; Mr. Howe in mathematics, finding him well advanced in geometry and algebra, had voluntarily suggested that he slight those subjects and apply the time thus gained where it was more needed; Professor Towle in English roughed him in the class when he got things wrong, but Towle had a heart of gold and was square as a brick. On the way back he dwelt on Mulcahy’s treacherous selfishness of the evening before, which had set Mr. Alsop against him and had made him forget that wretched vocabulary. “There’s one consolation,” he muttered to himself. “I shan’t have to take him home with me now.”
But Mulcahy had no wish to be cheated of his visit to the Archers. “I’ll fix that up,” he promised eagerly, when Sam informed him of the change of plan. “Let me go and see Alsop. I’ll tell him a yarn that’ll bring him round in five minutes.”
“What yarn?”
“Oh, I don’t know; any old thing that’ll go—something about a family party, or your mother’s being sick and sending for you and your being so overcome by losing his respect that you didn’t dare explain. It’ll be dead easy.”
“Easy or not, you won’t do it!” replied Archer, savagely. “I won’t have any one sucking round Alsop for me. You’ve told him lies enough, as it is.”
“Don’t be a fool!” said Mulcahy, sharply. “Don’t you want to go?”