"I am surprised that one who has been a teacher as long as you have does not understand boys any better," replied Mr. Hamblin, coldly. "I am satisfied that Kendall is at the bottom of all this mischief."
"I am very sure he is not," said Mr. Stoute, decidedly.
"The crew of the cutter had been prepared for their work."
It was surprising that two men who had been among boys so long took such opposite views of them; but the difference of opinion was more in the men than in the boys.
These events were the staple of conversation on deck and in the steerage among the crew; and some of the better boys heard certain indefinite remarks about "the first step" and "the second step," used by "our fellows;" but no real friend of law and order discovered anything which threw any new light upon the two misfortunes that had overtaken the senior professor, though there was a suspicion that these were the first and second steps hinted at by the doubtful ones.
CHAPTER X.
WHO WAS CAPTAIN OF THE JOSEPHINE?
Mr. Hamblin, as before intimated, did not sleep well on the night in question. The burden of being called to the state department, and even to the royal palaces of Belgium, was very trying to his nerves. When he slept, it was only to dream of the great statesman and revolutionary leader of the Low Countries, in the act of taking him by the hand or of presenting him to his majesty Leopold, "Roi de Belge."
He prepared himself with great care, in his reflections, for the stupendous occasion. He studied up courtly bows, and imagined just how he would look when in the act of making one of them. He pictured to himself various graceful gestures which he intended to use, in order to impress upon the great man the dignity of his character. He arranged the little tableau of his presentation to the king, with all the speeches, interludes, and movements. If the king said certain things, he should say certain other things in reply; and when the interview ended, he was with becoming grace to back out of the royal presence.