“I—I’m afraid we are,” said Tom. He did not add “sir,” as once he would have done. He had lost the little respect he had for the former teacher, and when a man loses the respect of a manly youth, it is not good for that man.
“Humph! Yes, you certainly have done mischief enough,” went on Mr. Skeel, in snarling tones. “My cutter is broken, I am thrown out, and may have sustained there are no telling what injuries, my horse has run away and may be killed, and you stand there like—like blithering idiots!” he cried, with something of his old, objectionable, schoolroom manner.
“We—we didn’t mean to,” said Tom.
“We just made a big snowball and rolled it down,” George said, determined to take his share of the blame.
“Hum! Yes, so I see—and so I felt, young men!” cried the irate man, as he brushed the snow off his garments.
The boys had not yet gotten over the surprise of identifying Professor Skeel. They could not understand it.
“We will do anything we can to make amends,” Tom said, slinging his skates over his shoulder with a jangling of steel. “We will try to catch your horse, and we can get you another cutter. We are——”
Something in Tom’s voice caused the man to look up quickly. As he did so Tom noticed that his right ear appeared as though it had been recently injured. The lower part was torn and hung down below the other lobe.
“Ha! So it’s you, is it!” fairly snarled Mr. Skeel. “It’s you, Tom Fairfield?”
“Yes, Mr. Skeel. And I can only say how sorry I am——”