CHAPTER VI.
THE RETORT COURTEOUS.
Because of the happy ending of the Ramble the seniors made no secret of the theft of the lunch hampers. If they had been obliged to go hungry, they would probably have kept the entire story to themselves. Such is human nature. When the story reached Miss Walker's ears, as most things about Wellington did sooner or later, she sent for Margaret Wakefield and got the history of the case from her in an exceedingly dramatic and well connected form.
"And we had gone to no end of trouble, Miss Walker, and a good deal of expense," Margaret finished. "Lots of us had had cakes and pickles and things sent on from home."
Miss Walker smiled. She could have named the contents of those hampers without any outside assistance.
"What none of us understands is where they took the hampers afterward. They couldn't have brought them back to college without being found out."
"No," answered the Principal, "that would have been impossible, of course, and yet the hampers have managed to find their way back." Shifting her chair from the table desk, she pointed underneath. "So, you see," she continued, "that the sandwiches and pickles and stuffed eggs and fudge may have found their way into college after all. Major Fern discovered the hampers. They had been tossed into a ditch near his place." Miss Walker sighed and frowned. "If the Exmoor boys were given to this kind of thing, I might have suspected some of them. But the standards at Exmoor are above such things as this," she indicated the hampers with a gesture of mingled disgust and pain. "If only—only I could bring my Wellington to that point. But every year there is something."
Margaret felt sorry for the Principal who had striven so hard for the honor of Wellington in the face of so many discouragements.
"It was a thoroughly silly and undignified act," she remarked later to the Queen's crowd, telling them of the interview, "to break up a time-honored custom like the Senior Ramble by stealing all the food; and I'm sorry for the girl who did it if she ever gets caught."