CHAPTER XXX
THE ACADEMY “GHOST” DISCOVERED
If Bar himself had passed that day in a state of ill-suppressed excitement, he had left a very volcanic state of things behind him.
Before matters at the Academy had a fair chance to settle into their customary routine, the news had passed swiftly from desk to desk and bench to bench, whispered, penciled, chalked, everything but telegraphed or shouted, that “Bar Vernon’s run away,” and this was speedily followed by, “Mr. Brayton’s gone after him.”
By the time the scholars were let out for the noon “recess,” the same messages, in various shapes and forms, had made the swift circle of Ogleport, and more than one boy found himself confronted, at corners of the green, by a more or less matronly inquisitor, anxious to “know about it all.”
It was surprising, too, very much so, what clear and circumstantial statements of the facts those boys were prepared to give, but if any one among them faltered in his tale, that one was not named Zebedee Fuller.
The amount of “faith” afloat in Ogleport was quite likely to be all called for whenever the different inquirers at Zeb’s mouth should come to compare notes.
“Val,” he dolefully exclaimed, as he encountered that young gentleman, “you’ve got to help me out of this.”
“Out of what?” said Val.
“Why, Bar hasn’t run away and George isn’t after him, but what am I to say about it?”