“No danger of it, Holt,” laughed Jack. “That’s nothing but a cleaning out medicine that will be good for you. Take off that mask of yours and you will breathe better. If it had not been for that, you would have got a bigger dose, but it will do, I guess.”
Jack had easily recognized Holt, but the other hazer was unknown to him, as he did not yet know all the boys at the Academy.
Holt retched, and coughed, and choked, and gasped, and was in a very uncomfortable state, but there was no danger of his dying and Jack knew it perfectly well.
“I know you, Holt,” he said. “I don’t know the other fellow, but he will know me after this, I guess. I haven’t got through with you fellows yet, but first I want to see how Herring and Merritt are coming on. He is a pickled Herring now, I warrant,” and Jack laughed heartily at the recollection of the bully’s sudden retreat.
He hurried back the way he had come, and shortly found Herring bending over a spring and trying to wash the ammonia from his face and eyes.
He had laid aside his mask and the stick he had carried, and was totally unprepared for Jack’s coming.
“What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the herring,” laughed Jack as he came up behind the bully and suddenly sent him plunging headfirst into the spring.
Herring sputtered and gasped, and Jack gave him another ducking, and without the slightest compunction.
“I don’t believe in taking a mean advantage of a fellow, as a rule,” he laughed, “but that is the only thing that a fellow like you will understand. This is the two-four-six degree, Herring.”
Then he gave the bully another ducking and finally left him to look for Merritt, who also deserved something more than he had received.