“Thank you, sir,” he said in a thick voice as he turned to leave the office.
Jeff was considerably disturbed by the developments of the morning and he went to his classes in a strangely confused and upset state of mind. Indeed, it was not until the noon recess period, just before the mid-day meal, that he managed to get control of himself again, and then only after he had had a long talk with his roommate, Wade Grenville.
“Whe-e-w-w-w,” whistled Wade, when Jeff unburdened himself to his chum, “of all the rotten dirty, skunky tricks in the world, there never was a worse one than that. And believe me, old kid, I think I know the birds who did it.”
“Who?” said Jeff, in a manner indicating clearly that he, too, had already made up his mind as to who was at the bottom of it all.
“Why, Gould and Birdie Pell, of course. There aren’t any other fellows in the school who would stoop to a trick as low as that,” said Wade with conviction.
“Well, I suspect Gould myself. But—er—well, I can’t believe Pell would do anything like that,” said Jeff.
“Tut-tut—he’s as bad as Gould. Wouldn’t wonder but that Gould had talked him into doing it and kept his own skirts clean.”
“No, no. I can’t believe that,” said Jeff.