“Course you couldn’t ’spect to be looked at in the light of a hero. It’s only the fellers what strut around and try to look like tin gods on wheels that gets the ribbons. Look at them gals talking to him now. He ain’t any better lookin’ than you, Lef, but he’s just got Minnie dead struck after him,” remarked Tony, with his usual disregard for all the rules of grammar. “Aw, let up on that, won’t you? Want to rub salt in a feller’s cuts, I guess. Don’t I see it all, and ain’t I just boiling with madness. She used to think somethin’ of me before she got going with that conceited little Helen Allen, and Frank, he butted in. I never will forgive him for that, and it won’t be long before he’ll get his, all right!” and Lef nodded his head as he spoke, in a suggestive way those cronies of his understood meant fight. But the tactics of Lef were never along that order which brought about an open rupture. Fight he would, if he could get the object of his hatred alone, and have backing of his own, so that the odds were three to one; but Lef had too much respect for the strong muscles and agility of Columbia’s crack athlete to risk a solitary meeting with him. No matter what he had in his mind he would not confide in either of the others. When they asked him he simply put his tongue in his cheek and grinned, which signs they understood meant trouble for Frank Allen. On Thursday morning, after the exercises in the assembly hall, the principal of the school, instead of dismissing the various classes to their rooms, asked them to remain, as he had a communication of importance which he wished to make. Expectation was on tiptoe immediately. Crafty Tony Gilpin, stealing a side look over toward Lef, caught a fleeting glow of expectancy in his eyes, while his manner of leaning forward indicated that he might know what was coming. “He’s gone and done it!” was Tony’s prompt inward declaration, and immediately his admiration for his chief was increased tenfold. Every eye was fastened upon Professor Parke as he stood up facing them. The ordinarily genial teacher looked very sober, and this fact caused many a heart to beat with apprehension, as various lads imagined that some prank in which they were concerned had been found out, and public disgrace was to follow. “Young ladies and gentlemen,” began the professor, who was always in the habit of addressing the students in this dignified way, just as though his training as a college man would allow of nothing else, “I have a very painful duty to perform this morning, and one I never thought would devolve upon me here at Columbia, though I have heard of it happening elsewhere.”