"You have no one but yourself to blame for your condition, sir," he said.
"Eh? eh? How's that? how's that?" sputtered Professor Gunn. "I don't think I understand you, sir."
"Then I will make it clear. If you had remained in your room, as you should when the disturbance occurred, you would not have received those injuries."
"But, sir—but I am the principal of this school. It is my place——"
"It is your place to keep in your room, sir, when there is an outbreak like the one under discussion, and allow me to straighten matters out. If you had done so, I might be able to get at the bottom of this affair and discover the guilty jokers; as it is, you and your associates complicated matters so that I do not seem able to do much of anything."
Having spoken thus plainly, Lieutenant Gordan turned on his heel, and left the professor in anything but a pleasant frame of mind.
It was a day or two after the occurrence of the "great centipede joke," as the crawfish affair came to be termed, that Paul Rains and Hugh Bascomb were having a bout with the gloves in the gymnasium. Quite a number of spectators had gathered, and Frank Merriwell sauntered up and joined the group.
Professor Rhynas was giving his attention to another department of the gymnasium, and he had left Bascomb to meet all comers and "give them points."
Bascomb was not finding it a very easy thing to give Rains many points, although he believed he could knock the fellow down any time he wished to do so by simply letting drive one of his sledgehammer blows.
But Bascomb had not thought of striking Rains with all his strength. He had discovered that Rains disliked Merriwell, and that was enough to establish a bond of friendship between the big plebe and the lad with whom he was boxing.