As it was, for three hours, upward of seventy-five full-blooded, able-bodied men wrangled over an affair that little Green had assumed the responsibility of making clear to the wider world outside. Theories, opinions, solutions, were flung at the dean until he felt his head swim, and saw double.
In the entire assemblage there was but one who had taken no active part in the discussion, but, rather, had appeared to look on merely, an interested, if at times annoyed, spectator—the professor of French.
He was observed occasionally to yawn.
During a lull he got upon his feet and straightway, without clearing his throat—said:
"Gentlemen, it seems to me we are as far from a solution of this affair as we were when we assembled. For one I am getting tired and am going home,"—he was quite independent for there was a standing "call" for him from an eastern institution.—"Now I have a suggestion to make. It is this: Suppose we all go home, and await the return of the president. Meanwhile let us keep our eyes and ears open, and our mouths shut; perhaps we may see and hear things that will indicate the proper course for us to take. In any event, it would seem wisest for us to await the return of the president. Good-night, gentlemen."
And buttoning his overcoat about him, the professor of French left the room.
It was not until then that the futility of their discussion dawned upon his colleagues. Some one moved that the meeting adjourn. The motion was carried. The old gentleman voted the single nay.
The dean walked home with assistant professor Lowe. Their conversation was wholly upon the case in hand. And when the dean left the younger man at the latter's door, he said: "I—oh—ah—I confess to being more puzzled than ever. A very mysterious affair—oh—ah—a most mysterious affair."
And so it was that the puzzlement of the worthy dean deepened next morning as he read little Green's sprightly, suggestive story.
But the frown vanished from his brow and the wonder from his eyes, when, as he left the house, a messenger handed him the president's telegram. And he hastened to the campus to make known to his colleagues the glad tidings that had come to him in the depths of his perplexity.