And Stanard seized the paper, tore it across the middle and flung it to the floor in disgust. Then he made for the door.
"There's going to be a fight!" he muttered. "I swear it by the Seven Hills of Rome!"
The Parson's blood was boiling with righteous indignation; he had "licked" those same cadets before, or some of them, and he meant to do it again right now. But when he reached the door he halted for a moment to listen to a voice he heard outside.
"I tell you I cannot do it! Bless my soul!"—the Parson recognized the sound. "I tell you I have lost enough weight already. I can't run again. Now, I'll go home first. Bless my soul!"
"Oho!" said the Parson. "So they got poor Indian in this thing, too. Um—this is something to think over."
With his usual meditative manner he turned and took his seat again, carefully pulling up his trousers and moving his coat tails as he did so. Clearing his throat, he began to discuss the case with himself.
"It is obvious, very obvious, that my condition will in no way be ameliorated by creating a suspicion in trying to make a forceful exit through that locked door.
"It would be a more efficacious method, I think, in some way to manage to summon aid. Perhaps it would be well to endeavor to leave in secret."
And with this thought in mind he went to the window.
"It would appear," he said, gravely, as he took in the situation, "that the 'high-thundering, Olympian Zeus' smiles propitiously upon my plan."