Mr. Ludsbury is the house master of Finny and Gene’s dorm during the regular academic calendar. A stern disciplinarian, Mr. Ludsbury works long and hard to maintain order and despises the lax environment that the substitute masters, Mr. Patch-Withers and Mr. Prud’homme, allowed to develop during the summer session. Despite his severity, though, he has such faith that the students will follow his orders that Gene and Finny find it easy to defy his orders, simply failing to do what he tells them and getting away with it because he doesn’t check to see if they’ve complied.