re, Doctor Wells put his fingers together
in the pose that was characteristic of him when he was deeply immersed
in thought. The clock on the mantel piece ticked loudly in the silence
of the room and Teeny-bits and Mr. Stevens sat pondering as profoundly
as the Head. After a time Doctor Wells spoke, slowly, as if he were
alone and were merely voicing the thoughts that flocked through his
mind:

"This is the strangest series of circumstances that has come to my
attention since I have been at Ridgley. It is hard to understand why two
young fellows should harbor such an animosity for any other member of
the school."

"Well," said Mr. Stevens, breaking in when the Head paused, "this
Bassett was a strange character; there seemed to be something lacking in
his nature; I shall have to admit that, although I made it a point to
study him, I quite failed to understand him. I don't think you knew that
on the day when Holbrook arrived at Ridgley, Bassett did certain things
which resulted in a struggle, and that Holbrook got the better of him in
a way that humiliated him before most of the roomers in Gannett Hall.
Almost any young fellow would recover from a thing like that and very
likely become good friends with his conqueror; in this case, however, it
seems to have started a germ of jealousy and desire for revenge which
grew out of all proportion to the incident. And then, of course,
Campbell was displaced on the team by Holbrook. From what I know of
those two young men I have come to the conclusion that Bassett, in his
crafty way, had a certain strength of character which allowed him to
dominate Campbell, whom I have always thought of as much the weaker
mentally of the two. A psychologist could probably have told us strange
things about Whirlwind Bassett."

"What is done can't, unfortunately, be undone," said the Head. "I regret
more than I can say that we were not able to nip all this trouble in the
bud--catch it at the beginning and prevent the tragic ending of it all."
Doctor Wells sat up a little straighter in his chair at that moment and
looked at Teeny-bits. "Holbrook," he said, "I want to tell you that I
appreciate the fine sense of loyalty to a friend that prevented you from
telling Mr. Stevens that you had seen Turner breaking into Campbell's
room. That would have explained something that puzzled us. But we
respect you for your silence."

"I knew that Snubby was honest," said Teeny-bits, "and, although I
couldn't i