"Why have we left you out?" said the Tennessee Shad indignantly. "What's happened to you these last three weeks? You've had a fighting grouch—no one dared to speak to you for fear of being bitten!"
"In fact," said Dennis, with his sharp, little glance, "you are under the gravest suspicion."
Seeing his secret in peril, Stover assumed a melancholy, injured air.
"You don't know what I've had to worry me," he said, looking out the window, "family matters—financial reverses."
"Oh, I say, Dink, old boy," said the Tennessee Shad, in instant contrition.
"You don't mean it's anything that might keep you from coming back next year?" said Dennis, aghast. "Oh, Dink!"
"I had rather not talk about it," said Stover solemnly.
Dennis and the Shad were overwhelmed with remorse—they offered him at once the Grand Marshalship, which he refused with still offended dignity, but promised his fertile brain to the common cause.
Now Dink's sentimental education, which had progressed with a rush, had just begun to languish on insufficiency of food and a little feeling of staleness on having exhausted the one thousand and one possible methods of saving a heroine's life and wringing the consent of her parents.
He felt a species of guilt in the accusation of his roommate and a sudden longing to be back among mannish pursuits. In an hour, with delighted energy, he had organized the banner and effigy committees of the demonstration and had helped concoct the fiery speech of protest that Doc Macnooder, as spokesman, was solemnly pledged to deliver for the embattled school.