As the school was now closed for “summer holidays,” the boys were free to do whatever they pleased.

One bright forenoon the heroic six, full of merry jokes, set out on a stroll to the woods. Charles and Will led the way, and why they made for the woods will be seen further on.

“Now, boys,” said Charley, “wouldn’t it be fun if we should have a real adventure to-day? something romantic; something worth while—eh, Marmaduke?”

[67]

Marmaduke’s eyes flashed like a persecuted hero’s whose case appears hopeless. However, he did nothing desperate, he simply said, “Boys, some day or another we shall light on something romantic—something awful! I’ve always felt it. Then we will pry into the mystery until we unravel it.”

Will, Charles, and Stephen, furtively exchanged glances. If their designs should succeed, Marmaduke would have a mystery to pry into sooner than he bargained for.

Just as they entered the woods they heard voices; and on looking about they caught sight of three little boys sitting astride of a decayed log. One seemed to have a paper of raisins, from which he was helping himself and the other two.

“Hush!” Charley whispered. “They haven’t seen us yet; so hide behind the bushes, and I’ll play a pretty trick on them.”

Without the least hesitation, without looking to see whether they were sitting on grass or thorns, they crouched down. Charley “knew himself,” and the boys obeyed him promptly.

Seeing that they were all concealed, he advanced boldly towards the three small boys.

“Hollo, Tim!” he exclaimed. “What have you got there?”

“Raisins,” Tim answered laconically.

“Where did you get them?” was the next question.

“Maw sent me fur ’em.”

“Oh, I thought so. Now I can go to work,” Charley muttered, in a theatrical “aside.”

“What do you want of me, and what are you a-saying to yourself?” demanded Tim, becoming questioner in his turn.

“I’ll give you a whistle for one of them, Tim,” Charley said, so eagerly that the boys in hiding wondered. Why should such a boy as Charley wish to purchase a single raisin? Was this a mystery? It seemed so mysterious that they pricked up their ears, and impatiently waited for further developments.

Tim’s thoughts are unknown. He replied indifferently,[68] “Well, if your whistle’s a good one, I guess I don’t mind; but I’ve give these here boys so many raisins that Maw’ll think that there new store-keeper cheats worse’n the old ones. Let’s see yer whistle, anyway.”

Charles turned his back to Tim, and searched his pockets for the whistle, a scrap of paper, and a forlorn lead pencil that had once done duty as the bullet of a popgun. Having found these articles, he scrawled a few words on the scrap of paper.

“Can’t you find the whistle?” Tim inquired unsuspectingly.

“I’m coming,” was the answer.

Then the gaping ambushed five saw him slip the battered pencil into his pocket, take the paper in one hand and the whistle in the other, and step briskly up to Tim.

Tim reached out the bag, and Charley ran his hand which secreted the paper far into it. Then he drew out his hand—empty.

“No, Tim,” he said, “I think you have given away enough already. But here’s the whistle, all the same. Now, run home, like a good boy.”

Young Tim tried his whistle somewhat doubtfully, for he was at a loss to know why it should be given to him for nothing. Big boys did not make a practice of throwing away good whistles on him, unless they looked for some return. Generosity so lavish astounded him.

But the first toot assured him of the soundness of the gift; a smile of pleasure flitted over his grimy face; and he exclaimed joyously, “Man! It’s bully, ain’t it?”

“Oh, it’s a good one,” Charley averred.

“I—I was afraid p’r’aps it was busted,” Tim acknowledged.

Then young Tim rose to his feet and wended his way homeward, piping melodiously on his whistle, unconscious of the bomb-shell hidden in the bag; while hard behind him, licking their daubed lips as they went, trotted the two parasitical boys who had been junketing on his mother’s raisins.

Charley, grinning and chuckling, hurried back to his comrades.

[69]

“I hope I’ve taught that thieving little sneak-thief a lesson he will remember,” he said, with a smile intended to be exceedingly moral.

“Why, what did you do? What on earth’s the matter? Tell us all about it,” cried a chorus of voices; “we could see something was up, but we didn’t know what.”

“Well, boys,” Charles began, “I have often caught that rascal feeding little boys, and big ones, too, from parcels of raisins, sugar, and other things; and I thought I would make him smart for it some day. So to-day, when I saw him at it again, I thought of writing something on a scrap of paper, and getting a chance to slip it into his bag. You saw me do that, perhaps. What I wrote was, ‘O, mother! please to forgive me! I stole your raisins and things, but I won’t do it no more.’ When his mother empties out the raisins, she will find that, and it will be enough for her. Then she’ll put two and two together, and then, most likely, she’ll put Tim and his skate-straps together. That is all, boys.”

“Good for you, Buffoon!” exclaimed Stephen, to whom this knavish trick was highly amusing. “Mr. Tim will ‘pay dear for his whistle’ this time—unless your confession should slip out of the bag!”

“No, I put it down nearly to the bottom,” Charley replied. “He won’t be likely to open his bag again, either, for he has eaten and given away about half of the raisins.”

“I say, boys,” said Stephen, “isn’t that what they call philanthropy?”

“What?” Charles asked eagerly.

“Teaching a boy that it’s wicked to steal.”

“No; it’s the vice of perfidy!” George replied, so promptly that a keen observer would have said, “This boy is impelled by envy; he wishes he had been guilty of the same vice.”

But George was in the right; Charley’s trick was inhumanly treacherous.

“Did you intend to take one of his raisins?” Jim faltered, a wolfish look in his eyes.

Charles’ lips curled with disdain; his nostrils dilated; virtuous indignation strove for utterance. But he knew[70] that he could not look so injured that the boy would hang his head in shame; so he resolved to annihilate him by a single word. To gain time to hit on an expression sufficiently awful, he demanded threateningly:

“What do you mean, Sir?”

Jim’s nerves were always weak, and this jeering question so unstrung them that he spoke the first words that occurred to him. (By the way, the phrase was a favorite one of his, one that he used on all occasions; and according to the tone in which he said it, it implied either doubt, indifference, petulance, fear, or profanity!)

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” is what he said.

“You hadn’t better!” Stephen thundered with lowering brow.

The reason why Steve espoused Charley’s cause so readily was because the boys still teased him about the donkey; and he rejoiced to find that another—that other his schoolfellow Charles—could be guilty of the misdemeanor of playing tricks. Truly, the abusive adage, “Misery loves company,” is right.

“It is bad enough for the store-keeper to handle the poor woman’s raisins; and Charley’s fingers don’t look so clean as a store-keeper’s, even;” George observed tauntingly.

“I guess Charley’s fingers are cleaner than Tim’s” retorted Stephen, always eager to play the part of champion to some aggrieved wight, especially so now.

But Charles perceived that his joke was not appreciated as it should have been; and he turned beseechingly to Will, his firm upholder in all things. “Will,” he said, “what do you think about it? Did I do wrong?”

Thus appealed to, Will made answer: “Capital joke, Charley; but you have begun your career as a reformer rather early in life.”

This did not satisfy Charley, and he took to his last expedient.

When a renowned general b............