"I believe that. Since you've been here, Byrd, you've been into more or less mischief, but I've never known you to be guilty before of anything in such utterly bad taste. Unfortunately, however, I can't excuse you because you didn't think. You should have thought." "Yes, sir," agreed Amy eagerly, "and I don't expect to be excused, sir. I only thought that maybe you'd let up on the others if you knew how it all happened. I thought maybe it would do just as well if you expelled me, sir, and let the other fellows off easy. Tom Hall----" "I see. It's Hall who's worrying you, is it? You're afraid Hall's absence from the team may result disastrously! Possibly it will. If it does I shall be sorry, but Hall will have to take his medicine just like the rest of you. Perhaps this will teach you all to think a little before you act. No, Byrd, I shall have to refuse your offer. Expelling you would not be disciplining the rest, nor would it be an equitable division of punishment. The verdict must stand, my boy." Amy went sorrowfully forth and announced the result to Clint. "I think he might have done what I wanted," he complained a trifle resentfully. "You're an utter ass," said Clint with unflattering conviction. "What good would it do you to get fired in your last year?" "None, but if he'd have let the others off----" "Do you suppose that the others would have agreed to any such bargain? They're not kids, even if you try to make them out so. They went into the thing with their eyes open and are just as much to blame as you are. They wouldn't let you be the goat, you idiot!" "They needn't have known anything about it, Clint. Oh, well, I suppose there's no use fussing. I don't care about the others. It's Tom I'm sorry for. And the team, too. Pryme can't fill Tom's shoes, and we'll get everlastingly walloped, and it'll be my fault, and----" "Piffle! Tom's a good player, one of the best, but he isn't the whole team. Pryme will play the position nearly as well. I'm sorry for Tom, too, but he's the one who will have to do the worrying, I guess. Now you buck up and quit looking like a kicked cur." "If only the fellows didn't have it in for him the way they have," mourned Amy. "Everyone's down on him and he knows it and he's worried to death about it. They're a lot of rotters! After the way Tom's worked on that team ever since he got on it! Why, he's done enough for the school if he never played another lick at anything! And I'll tell you another thing. Someone's going to get licked if I hear any more of this knocking!" "You'll have to lick most of the school then," replied Clint calmly. "Try not to be a bigger chump than nature made you, Amy. You can't blame the fellows for being a bit sore at Tom. I am myself. Only I realise that he didn't mean to get into trouble with the office, and the rest of them don't, I reckon. It'll all blow over in a few days. Cheer up. A month from now you won't care a whoop."