"
"Suppose you had skinned the wrong party?" cynically observed Mr.
Galloway. "You are too hasty with your tongue, Roland Yorke. My nephew,
Mark, ran in just now to tell me of the holiday being denied, and that
was the first I had heard of the affair. Mark thinks one of the seniors
was in it; not Gaunt."
Arthur Channing and Roland Yorke both looked up with a sharp, quick
gesture. Gaunt excepted, the only senior, besides their respective
brothers, was Harry Huntley.
"It is not likely, sir," said Arthur.
"A senior do it!" scoffed Roland Yorke. "What a young idiot Mark
Galloway must be, to think that!"
"Mark does not seem to think much about it on his own account," said
Mr. Galloway. "He said Bywater thought so, from some cause or other;
and has offered to bet the whole school that it will turn out to be a
senior."
"Does he, though!" cried Yorke, looking puzzled. "Bywater's a cautious
fellow with his money; he never bets at random. I say, sir, what else
did Galloway tell you?"
"That was all," replied Mr. Galloway. And if you wonder at a staid old
proctor chattering about this desultory news with his clerks in
business hours, it may be explained to you that Mr. Galloway took the
greatest possible interest, almost a boyish interest, in the college
school. It was where he had been educated himself, where his nephews
were being educated; he was on intimate terms with its masters; knew
every boy in it to speak to; saw them troop past his house daily in
their progress to and fro; watched them in their surplices in a Sunday,
during morning and afternoon service; was cognizant of their
advancement, their shortcomings, their merits, and their scrapes: in
fact, the head-master could not take a greater interest in the doings
of the collegiate school, than did Mr.
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