The aeronaut and Miss Perkman were approaching together, and the old maid did not seem half so angry as she had been.
"You see," Mr. Sharp was saying, "it will be a good advertisement for your school. Think of having the distinction of having harbored the powerful airship, Red Cloud, on your roof."
"I never thought of it in that light," admitted the principal. "Perhaps you are right. I shall put it in my next catalog."
"And, as for damages to the tower, we will pay you fifty dollars," continued the balloonist. "Do you agree to that, Mr. Swift?" he asked Tom. "I think your father, the professor, would call that fair."
"Oh, as long as this airship is partly the property of a professor, perhaps I should only take thirty-five dollars," put in Miss Perkman. "I am a great admirer of professors—I mean in a strictly educational sense," she went on, as she detected a tendency on the part of some of the young ladies to giggle.
"No, fifty dollars will be about right," went on Mr. Sharp, pulling out a well-filled wallet. "I will pay you now."
"And if you will wait I will give you a receipt," continued the principal, evidently as much appeased at the mention of a professor's title, as she was by the money.
"We're getting off cheap," the balloonist whispered to Tom, as the head of the seminary started down the scuttle to the class-rooms below.
"Maybe it's easier getting out of that difficulty than it will be to get off the roof," replied the lad.
"Don't worry. Leave that to me," the aeronaut said. It took considerable to ruffle Mr. Sharp.