The next morning Mr. Prud'homme, a substitute teacher for the summer, comes by the dorm to discipline Gene and Phineas for missing dinner. Phineas, however, is so unabashed, so ardently sincere in his rambling explanation, that Mr. Prud'homme, like everyone else at the Devon school, is soon charmed by Finny; no punishment is issued. Gene marvels at the paradox that is Phineas, who on the one hand has the winning urge to be good, but who on the other displays a calm ignorance of school regulations.
In celebration of the first allied bombing of Central Europe, Finny decides to wear a garish pink shirt as an emblem of his support, shrugging off Gene's opinion that it makes him look like a "fairy." No one else in the school, Gene realizes, could get away with.....
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