"Why," said the Professor, "in anticipation of the tournament, Barney had procured pieces of leather perforated by a number of long and sharp tacks, the points of which were carefully covered by other pieces of thinner leather, so arranged that it required the weight of the rider to cause the tacks to pierce through. Bates had seduced the other boys from their allegiance to their respective knights, and under each saddle was one of these cruel instruments of torture, ready to give the steed great agony as soon as the valiant knight had mounted." "And that caused the horses to kick up and run off?" said Ida. "That was undoubtedly the cause of their extraordinary excitement," said the Professor. "I wonder what has become of Love?" said Ida. "He fell at your feet," said Toney. "And Bliss?" said Rosabel. "Bliss endeavored to bestow himself on you," said Toney. "Indeed, he was very near falling in Rosabel's lap," said the widow. "And what did they do with Dove?" asked Ida. "Ladies," said the Professor, "I have made inquiry, and can answer your questions. Those three gallant knights were carried from the lists to the town. No bones had been broken, but their nerves were terribly shattered. They were conducted to a chamber in the hotel, and strong tonics brought from the bar and skillfully administered by the landlord. At this very moment, Love, Dove, and Bliss are snugly sleeping in the same bed, and probably dreaming of future fields of glory." CHAPTER XXVII. In the society of the beautiful Ida, Tom Seddon passed seven days of rapture. Every morning and evening he was at the mansion of the Widow Wild, and had eyes and ears for nobody but Ida. The Professor informed Toney that in their walks homeward by moonlight, Tom was usually as silent as a man who had a difficult problem in his head for solution, and that on several occasions, when he had endeavored to engage him in conversation, he had started from a reverie, and exclaimed, "Indeed, Miss Ida, what you say is very true." "He mistook you for Ida?" asked Toney. "To be sure he did," said the Professor. "Mistook me for a young lady. Is it not a pretty piece of business for the founder of the sect of Funny Philosophers to have the imagination of one of his disciples clothing him in petticoats? Toney, tell me, candidly, do I look like Ida?" "Not much, I must confess," said Toney, laughing. "But Ida's image is impressed on Tom's organ of vision, and when he looks at you the image aforesaid is dancing in the intervening space." "And so he mistakes me for the young lady. Tom Seddon is getting to be really disagreeable," said the Professor. "During the day, when Ida is not present, he is as absent-minded as was ever old Sir Isaac Newton; and at night, as we occupy the same room in the hotel, I am annoyed by his somniloquism." "What does he say?" asked Toney.