“Yes, kiddo, you certainly would. As a matter of fact, you have not been specially impertinent, considering the provocation; and what’s jolly well certain is that Gumshoe doesn’t want the matter to get to the Head. He knows who’s to blame, but he has it in for us. Painful person, isn’t he? Virgil’ll rot before I do his thousand lines or pay any attention to his gating. I wish he would take us to the Head. Well, I reckon Thornton will let Finch alone now. Let’s find Jimmie, and go and wash the blood off in the tank.” So saying, they locked arms, and went singing “Up above the school-topp’d hill” down the corridor. They met Mr. Morris at the outer door of Standerland House. “Well, you seem to be particularly frisky this afternoon,” said he, “what’s up?” “Absolutely nothing,” laughed Kit; “we’re just two good pure innocent happy schoolboys. Come on, magister; come for a dip with us in the tank.” “Well, wait a second, while I stow sweater and stick, and I’ll be with you.” CHAPTER XII A GATING AND A GAME For the next few days Thornton’s thrashing was the principal theme of the school talk. The story was told, though no one knew whence it originated. Tony and Kit dismissed it with a laugh or an exclamation, but Finch, interrogated on all hands, gave a correct version. Thornton and his friends kept themselves in the background for a week or so, but nursed their grudge with the dogged determination of ill-will, and when occasion offered continued to torture Finch on the sly, but not so brutally. The chief satisfaction that Tony got out of the incident, after the pleasure of thrashing a bully, was his talk with the Head on the subject. “I hear,” said Doctor Forester, as he stopped Deering after Chapel one morning, “that there have been some lively doings in Standerland of late, in the absence of the masters.” Tony, not yet sure of the Doctor’s attitude, blushed and stammered something that was quite unintelligible. The Head eyed him keenly. “For once,” he said, laying his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder, “I am not disposed to object to a somewhat vigorous method of taking the law into your own hands. I fancy you will have been successful in putting an end to the brutal hazing to which young Finch has been subjected.” “Thank you, sir,” said Tony. “We were a bit rough and pretty generally out of order, but we hoped the end justified the means.” The Doctor smiled and went on. Tony found Kit at the lobby outside the schoolroom, and repeated the conversation in great glee. “Great man, the Doctor!” remarked Kit, judiciously. “Now I guess we’ll let the Gumshoe whistle for his lines. What a relief it is occasionally to meet with broad-mindedness on the part of those who are charged with our education. Same with the Gumshoe’s gating,” he added, in illogical parenthesis.