"Do you know anything about the author of this senseless piece of imposition?"
"Certainly not. I had not the least idea that the ponderous document was not genuine till his excellency pronounced it a forgery."
"Who could have done this?"
"Some of the students, probably."
"Probably," replied the professor, taking the note from his pocket again, and carefully scanning the handwriting. "I have no doubt it was done by one of the students. It is another of their infamous tricks—the fourth that has been put upon me. Do the other instructors suffer in this manner?"
"I have not heard of any other victims, and I am inclined to think you are the only one."
"I do not see why I should be selected as the recipient of these silly and ridiculous, not to say wicked, tricks. A rope falls on my head, I am pitched into the river, drenched with dirty water, and now sent on a fool's errand to the king's chief minister! I don't understand why I am the only sufferer."
Professor Stoute did understand why Mr. Hamblin had been so frequently sacrificed, but he had a habit of minding his own business, and did not venture to give an opinion on the subject, which probably would not have been well received. What the fat professor knew all the boys in the Josephine, and most of those in the Young America, knew—that the cold, stiff, haughty, tyrannical, overbearing manner of the lean professor had made him exceedingly unpopular; that the students disliked him even to the degree of hating him; that if he had ever had any influence with them, he had lost it by his ridiculous sternness and stupid precision. Mr. Hamblin did not know this, but everybody else did.
"Don't you know this writing, Mr. Stoute?" demanded the irate man of Greek roots, after an attentive study of the note.
"I do not."