“I thought sure McNibb would hear us snickering when we pulled the strings and upset the paint,” added Pete.
“And what a sight Mersfeld and North were!” remarked Whistle-Breeches. “They must have looked like walking complexion advertisements when the lights were turned on.”
“I wonder if they’ll be fired?” spoke Bob Chapin. “I wouldn’t like that.”
“Hu! That’s probably what they wanted to happen to us!” cut in Whistle-Breeches. “It’s a case of chicken eat turkey I reckon, and everybody have cranberries.”
“They didn’t actually do anything,” went on Bill, as he and his brothers and chums were talking over the affair next morning. “The evidence only pointed to them as if they were going to do it.”
“That’s enough for McNibb,” commented Cap. “Great monkey doodles! There goes last bell and I’ve got to look over my Pindar yet. Holy mackerel!”
The whole school was buzzing with the news, and it was soon generally known that the Smith boys had neatly turned the tables on the plotters.
As for those worthies, the events had followed each other so rapidly that they hardly knew what to think, much less say or do. It was a complete surprise to them, and they dared not utter a word as to what their real intentions had been.
As Cap had said, the circumstantial evidence was enough against them. They had been caught, if not exactly with the paint in their possession, at least with it all over them, and the anonymous letter was enough to declare their object, albeit that screed was intended to throw suspicions on others.
“Have you anything to say?” the proctor had asked them when he had them in his sanctum.