With that, the Doctor turned upon his heel and strode away, but Zebedee walked up to Bar Vernon and held out his hand, remarking:
“Solomon is right, for once. If ever a man like him can acquire wisdom, I should be ashamed of myself to exhibit a lower order of intelligence. I have no longer the least disposition to give you a thrashing.”
“Nor I either,” said Bill Jones.
Hy Allen was a little slower, but in a moment more he came in with:
“Zeb, ask him how he does it. I own up. It beats me.”
As for the other boys, none of them had suffered more than a sharp and sudden upset, with a “contusion” or so, as a surgeon would have described it, and they were quite willing to join their comrades in calling it a drawn battle.
“That is,” explained Zeb Fuller, “our side’s drawn out. And now I hope we’ll be able to make it all right with old Sol. Mr. Vernon, it would delight me exceedingly if you would persuade Solomon to let you give him a boxing lesson and allow me to be personally present as spectator.”