"No, he won't, but we don't go with him anyhow, and he bullies his own set into doing just what he wants, so that he never wants for company. You can't send him to Coventry very well, so I don't know that it will do much good to let him know that we know all about it."
"It will take down his conceit, Hal," said Arthur, "and that is one of his biggest assets. A bit of ridicule of his fine plot will take the starch out of him, and that's what he needs."
"Yes, to be sure."
The boys were in sight of the Van der Donk house by this time, but as they had no intention of calling they turned around and went back to the camp where they met Jack and his two friends just coming ashore.
"I have just heard how you got your black eye the other night, Billy," laughed Jack. "J.W., here, said he was not to tell, but we excused him under the circumstances. We came to the conclusion that you got your black eye in trying to stop Herring when he was getting out of the window of the doctor's cottage after he had put back the manuscript he had been 'fixing,' as he called it."
"That's what we think," said Harry. "Billy has just been telling us about it. We laughed at him that night, but he was cute enough to keep the thing quiet until he found out more about it."
"Harry thinks it won't do any good to expose Herring," said Arthur, "but I think it will."
"There is no especial need of it," rejoined Jack quietly.. "He has only made a stupid mistake, and done me no harm whatever, and it is really not worth while to pay any more attention to it. I shall not, at any rate."
"I am sorry he is here, anyhow," said Arthur. "He is always making a lot of trouble. The fellows don't like him and after the other day when he claimed that he thought the Rocky Hill boys were playing a trick on him, and would not go to the aid of the one who had the cramp, not only our boys, but the other fellows are sore on him, and if there are any more meets they will look out that he is not asked."
"They probably won't have any," added Percival. "They are really bound to ask the whole Academy, and so they won't ask any one. That will put an end to these meets, for they won't come up here as long as they know they will meet Herring. For my part I think he ought to be exposed, but, of course, it should be as Jack thinks. He is the one most concerned."