“No,” said Dr. Cole. “I can’t do that. But I will make yours the heaviest, for I think you deserve it. You are older than your chums, not much it is true, but a little, and they look to you as to a natural leader. You should lead them along different lines.”
And then came the punishment. It was heavy, but justly so. There was to be a period of confinement to the college grounds, longest in the case of Jerry, and there was also prohibition to take part in any games or amusements, or to attend their fraternity meetings for a certain period.
“Whew!” exclaimed Ned as they emerged from the president’s office, “that was bitter medicine all right.”
“Well, I guess we deserve it,” observed Jerry.
“But we did stir things up,” Bob said, with a smile.
“Yes, we stirred up a hornet’s nest,” remarked Ned. “And I’d like to get it around the ears of the fellow who told—Frank it was, to my way of thinking.”
“You’ll have your own troubles proving it,” remarked Jerry.
The three chums spent a miserable time when they were on probation, so to speak, unable to join in the fun the others had. And though the time of Bob and Ned was up before that of Jerry, the two refused to accept their restored privileges, and stuck to their chum, not going anywhere he could not go.
Perhaps it was this that led Dr. Cole to shorten Jerry’s term of punishment, for on the night following a big snow storm, when half the college was out on the hill on big bobsleds, coasting, word was sent to Jerry that he was given back his full privileges.