Poole stood in the middle of the room, his lips still parted, his eyes staring. His expression, as Owen saw it, and as it would have appeared if reproduced by instantaneous photography, was almost idiotic, so stunned was he by the incredible news. In a moment, however, intelligence returned.

"Do you mean to say that Carle has sneaked off home for good, and sold his things to you?" he demanded fiercely, taking a threatening step forward upon poor Jenks, as if the dealer were to be held responsible for Carle's disappearance.

Mr. Jenks edged away. "I dunno about sneakin'," he replied resentfully; "I said he'd gone home for good and sold his things to me. I s'pose he's got a right to go if he wants to."

"Did he tell you he wasn't coming back?"

"Yes, he did, three days ago, right in this very[Pg 147] room. He didn't want me to come for the stuff till to-day, because he said the boys would bother him with questions. I'm going to send him the money as soon as I get the things down to the store."

Poole stood silent, but his eyes, angrily snapping, remained fixed upon the furniture dealer, and his lips, tightly shut, twitched at the corners. Mr. Jenks looked puzzled; suddenly a ray of intelligence flashed over his face. "None of the furniture was yours, was it?" he asked eagerly, thinking to have found the reason for Poole's emotion. "He said it was all his except what belonged to his room-mate."

"None of it's mine," returned Poole, turning abruptly on his heel. "Come on, Owen!"

He went plunging down the stairs, with Owen following closely. At the outside door he turned on his companion.

"What do you think of that?" he demanded hotly. "That's a fine trick to play us, isn't it!"

"If his father sent for him I suppose he had to go," remarked Owen, thinking for the moment[Pg 148] rather of Mr. Carle's plight than of that of the school.

"Why did he have to go?" shouted Poole, whose wrath, already at the boiling-point, bubbled furiously over at the suggestion of excuse for Carle's defection. "Why did he have to go? Why couldn't he stay here and earn his way as well as Laughlin and Jeffrey and White and Barrington, and lots of other fellows that are better than he is? Why did he have to join that Standard Oil crowd and play the sport, when he knew, and everybody knew, that he had no money to spend? Why couldn't he live within his means, like any decent fellow? Think of his knowing for a week that he was going to clear out, and letting us tend him and tutor him and guard him like a confounded little prince! Why, he was in the cage with Borland yesterday afternoon!"

These were obviously rhetorical questions, to which answers were not expected. But Rob, though he felt no temptation to undertake the defence of Carle, could not refrain from remarking: "You fellows were partly responsible.[Pg 149] You've done nothing but flatter him and pet him since he came."

There was some truth in this charge, and Poole was honest enough to recognize it. He passed abruptly from vituperation to lament:—

"But he could pitch—you know he could. I never saw a fellow in the cage like him—and he's let us waste all the winter on him, the beggar, and now crawls off just when we rely on him most. What's O'Connell or that green Patterson compared with him? Borland's simply thrown his winter away."

The references to Patterson and Borland were not pleasing to Owen; the first, because he knew that the contemptuous opinion was not deserved, the second, because it emphasized once more the contrast between his own position and that of Borland. It had apparently not occurred to Poole that Patterson might have developed under Owen's tuition.

"I call Patterson a very promising man," he blurted out, stung by the captain's slur, and regardless of his secret.

Poole shot a quick glance at his companion.

[Pg 150]

"Better than Carle, perhaps," he said with a mocking smile.

"Better than Carle two years from now, if not better to-day," Owen retorted hotly. "I've caught them both and I ought to know something about it."

Poole sniffed,—in pity rather than contempt. That a fellow who evidently had seen good ball, and who usually showed common sense, should group Carle and Patterson together as equals, or likely to be equals, seemed unaccountable. "He'll do me a heap of good two years from now, won't he? I want some one ............