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Of course Tod sought the principal at the earliest opportunity and owned up.

When he appeared in the principal’s room after afternoon school he made, it is true, a valiant effort to present himself with due solemnity, but his round face was absurdly chubby and cheerful, and when the principal looked up from the letter he was writing to see who the intruder was, he sighed deeply.

“You again, Beaton!” he exclaimed wearily. “So it was you, was it, who rang that bell? What on earth did you do it for?”

“My nose bled, sir....” Tod began eagerly.

“What had your nose to do with it?”

“Everything, sir. I was sent out of class....”

“Sent out of class?” the principal repeated sternly.

“Because I made such a mess,” Tod hastened to add; “and the little door was open—and so I rang the bell.”

“Beaton, when will you cease to play these senseless and annoying tricks? Your folly caused six hundred boys, to say nothing of the masters, to lose twenty precious minutes. If I punished you as you deserve, you ought to stay in for twenty minutes each day for six hundred days....”