"Are they going to fight?" asked Tom in a hoarse whisper. "Sid must be crazy!"
"Ha, Mr. Henderson, I thought I smelled liquor on you! I am not deceived. What have you in that pocket?"
There was a momentary struggle, and the proctor pulled something from an inner pocket of Sid's coat. By the gleam of the electric lamp, Tom and Phil could see that it was a bottle--a flask of the kind usually employed to carry intoxicants--broad and flat, to fit in the pocket.
"Ha! Mr. Henderson, this is serious!" exclaimed the proctor. "Trying to smuggle liquor into the college! Come with me to my room at once. This must be investigated. I will find out who are guilty with you, in this most serious breach of the rules. A bottle of liquor! Shameful! Come with me, sir! Dr. Churchill shall hear of this instantly!" and he took hold of Sid's arm, as if he feared the student would escape.
"What do you think of that?" gasped Tom, as the full meaning of what he had seen came home to him.
"I give up," answered Phil hopelessly. "Poor, old Sid!"
Tom and Phil wished they could have been a witness to the scene which took place a little later in the study of Dr. Churchill. Not from mere motives of curiosity, but that they might, if possible, aid their chum. That he was in serious straits they well knew, for the rules of Randall (as indeed is the case at all colleges) were most stringent on the subject of liquor.
Poor Sid, led like a prisoner by the proctor, walked moodily up to the faculty residence, while Tom and Phil, with sorrow in their hearts, went to their room. Their grief was too deep and genuine to admit of discussion.
"You wished to see me?" inquired Dr. Churchill, coming out of his study into his reception room, as Sid and the proctor stood up to greet him, having previously sent in word by the servant. "Ha, what is it now?" and the venerable head of Randall looked over the tops of his spectacles at the two; the official, stern and unyielding, and the student with a puzzled, worried air, sorrowful yet not at all guilty. Dr. Churchill held a book and his finger was between the pages, as if he hoped soon to be able to go back and resume his reading at the place he had left off.
"I regret to announce that I have a most flagrant violation of the rules to report to you, Dr. Churchill," began Mr. Zane.