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The seven masters waited in a grumpy group for ten good minutes, when, just as they had decided upon immediate departure, the principal himself rushed in and gazed in somewhat indignant astonishment at the assembled multitude.

It took nearly five minutes more to explain the situation, and the only boy whose conduct in delivering the various messages seemed not wholly inexplicable appeared to be Peter. For the principal good-naturedly came to the conclusion that it must have been Peter that he met, not Tod, and that Peter had misunderstood him.

Such a charitable view of Peter’s conduct, however, could not last long, seeing that six angry masters rushed back to their respective forms to inflict lines upon six perfectly innocent boys, who were not slow to protest that the message was entrusted to them by another.

During the morning three young gentlemen from the Modern and four from the Classical received a summons “to the principal at twelve,” and of course Tod and Peter were of the number, both looking so seraphically innocent that the principal was perfectly sure that it was “a put-up thing.” In this instance the innocent suffered with the guilty, for Tod got five hundred lines as well as Peter. But they both agreed that to have so scored off seven “brushers” at one time was well worth the lines.