"If any student has any objections to make to the fairness of this transaction, now is the time, and the only time there will be, to make them," added the principal.
At this remark Lew Shoreham rose from his seat, and the boys wondered if he intended to deliver the oration he had prepared as a protest against a uniform.
"I am sorry to feel obliged to object—not, I beg to say, in the most emphatic manner,—to the fairness of the committee," the last of the rebels began, pluming himself for a speech which promised, as usual, to be of considerable length. "Our honored principal was kind enough to say the 'fairness of this transaction,' from which I infer that the whole subject of the plans and prizes is included."
"Certainly," added the principal rather brusquely, as though he understood what was coming. "But you must confine yourself to the subject now before the school."
"That is my intention," replied Shoreham, with a polite bow to the head of the school. "The objection I feel compelled to make is, that nearly one third of the school—eight out of twenty-six, to speak with mathematical accuracy—have been shut out from the competition."
Mr. Bridges had to stuff half his pocket handkerchief into his mouth to ward off an outburst of laughter at the high-flown speech of the speaker, and the other members of the committee were equally amused, though their risibles were more controllable.
"Eight of the students of this useful institution, some of whom had ideas in the sublime science of architecture, and in the equally important subject of civil engineering, were prevented from embodying those ideas in the form of plans, and presenting them for consideration in this competition," Shoreham proceeded, evidently believing that he had produced a sensation in the committee.
"What prevented them from competing for the prizes, Shoreham?" asked the matter-of-fact principal, who had not a great stock of patience under the infliction of a high-flown speech.
"The eight students alluded to unfortunately differed from the authority of the school, and from a majority of their fellow-students, in a matter relating to the discipline of the institution. They were sentenced to confinement in their several apartments. While they were thus compulsorily absent from the usual assemblage of the students"—