The Twins stood and stared at each other like tailors' dummies for a moment, while the strangers on the platform and on the train wondered if they were seeing double.
Then Reddy and Heady dropped each his valise, and made a spring. And each landed on the other's neck.
Now Sawed-Off seized Heady's valise, and Jumbo seized Reddy's, and then they all set off together—the reunited Twins, the completed Dozen—for the campus. The whole Twelve felt a new delight in the reunion, and realized for the first time how dear the Dozen was.
The Twins, of course, were blissfulest of all, and marched at the head of the column with their arms about each other, exchanging news and olds, both talking at once, and each understanding perfectly what the other was trying to say.
Thus they proceeded, glowing with mutual affection, till they reached the edge of the campus, when the others saw the Twins suddenly loose their hold on each other, and fall to, hammer and tongs, over some quarrel whose beginning the rest had not heard.
Jumbo grinned and murmured to Sawed-Off: "The Twins are themselves again."
But Sawed-Off hastened to separate and pacify them, and they set off again for Reddy's room, arm in arm. Later Heady arranged with his parents to let him stay at Kingston for the rest of the school-year.
* * * * *
Heady had not been back among his old cronies long before they had him up in a corner in Reddy's room, and were all trying at the same time to tell him of the atrocious behavior of the Crows, their harsh treatment of Tug and History, the magnificent resistance, and the glorious rescue.
"It reminds me," said History, "of one of Sir William Scott's novels, with moats and castles, and swords and shields, and all sorts of beautiful things."