“Please come over,” Finch continued. “I have something important to tell you.”
Once in his own little room, Jake turned a white excited face to Tony, his shyness was gone, absorbed now by his passion of rage and anxiety.
“Well, what the deuce is up?” asked Tony, smiling a little at his protégé’s agitation.
“A lot. There’s just been a faculty meeting. I have heard all about it—it doesn’t matter how—but all about it! and the Doctor put you up for Head Prefect—and said all manner of fine things about you—all the masters were there and they were all going to vote for you—when Roylston—curse him!—got up and told about The Spectacle, and read them that copy of it he stole from me, and when he got through he said he’d give up his job here if you were made Head Prefect—and there was a lot of gas—and the Doctor broke up the meeting—and said he’d talk it over with Roylston. And then he went off. And I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Here, here! what’s all this,” exclaimed Tony, as Finch paused for breath. “You’re crazy, Jake. Somebody’s been telling you a fairy story to get you excited.”
“No, I am not crazy,” Jake replied. “I tell you I know all about it.”
“Well, what the dickens is it? Say it over, will you?”
Finch repeated, this time more accurately, all that he had overheard. “He’s trying to queer you,” he concluded, “that’s what! and he may do it, if we don’t do something.”
“Jake, I say you are off your head. In the first place, I can’t imagine the Gumshoe hating me quite hard enough for that, and, in the second, I’m blamed sure the thing has got twisted in being reported to you.”
“It didn’t—I heard it—about it, I mean—I can’t tell you who told me.”