“Other chaps,” Tod remarked mournfully, “can break all sorts of rules and do no end of mischief and never get found out, but if we do the least little thing someone’s certain to be down on us like a hundred of bricks, or else we’re obliged to own up to save somebody else.”
In this case it was the latter course that Tod had to pursue. The principal was exceedingly angry at such a wanton curtailment of the last hour of morning school, and gave it out in the afternoon that if the amateur bellringer did not disclose himself that very day, the whole school should stay in on the next half-holiday; and the frost had broken and football was in full swing once more.
Of course Tod sought the principal at the earliest opportunity and owned up.
When he appeared in the principal’s room after afternoon school he made, it is true, a valiant effort to present himself with due solemnity, but his round face was absurdly chubby and cheerful, and when the principal looked up from the letter he was writing to see who the intruder was, he sighed deeply.
“You again, Beaton!” he exclaimed wearily. “So it was you, was it, who rang that bell? What on earth did you do it for?”
“My nose bled, sir....” Tod began eagerly.
“What had your nose to do with it?”
“Everything, sir. I was sent out of class....”
“Sent out of class?” the principal repeated sternly.
“Because I made such a mess,” Tod hastened to add; “and the little door was open—and so I rang the bell.”