The moment his foot touched the threshold Simmons began to exclaim: "It was perfectly great! I'm awfully glad I went! He's got a peach of a canoe, and what he doesn't know about animals and reptiles and birds—" He stopped suddenly as he caught sight of the massive form of the venerated Laughlin looming behind the door. "Oh, excuse me, I didn't know any one was here."

"No one but me," said the visitor, "and though I'm big, I'm not dangerous. Who's got the peach of a canoe?"

"Payner," answered Simmons, throwing a questioning look at Owen.

"That's the fellow that's been working the plagues on the Pecks, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Simmons, eagerly. "How did you know about it?"

[Pg 201]

"Oh, everybody knows something about it," returned Laughlin, with a grin. "I suppose he was after material. What number has he reached now?"

"I think he's getting ready for Number Six," said Simmons, gravely. "He didn't say what it was to be, but he told me all sorts of things he might do. If he does everything he talks about he'll have to put them three at a time to keep within ten. He showed me where he got the newts he put in the clothes-bag, and where he used to catch turtles and water-snakes, and the old stumps where he dug out salamanders. He says that below the falls, on Salt River, you can catch all sorts of things when the tide's out—dip up young eels by the pailful. They'd do to put in the water pitchers."

"I shouldn't care for them in mine," observed Laughlin.

"When it gets warmer there are going to be more things," Simmons continued, growing more confidential and serious as he proceeded. "All sorts of bugs, for example, and hornets' nests that you can take off in the night and throw in through[Pg 202] the windows. It's easy to get half a pint of ants from any big ant hill if you only know how, and the brown-tail moth caterpillars they talk so much about—the hairs fly and are poisonous, you know—it wouldn't be at all hard to find a nest with the caterpillars just in the right stage outside the town somewhere. Then he took me into his room and showed me an enormous spider he had in a bottle—he got it from home—and asked me how I thought the Pecks would like it to find such a thing in their pajamas some night. Isn't it awful!"

Simmons stopped for breath, and looked horror-struck from face to face.

"What's it all for, anyway?" asked Laughlin.

"Why, the Pecks ripped up his room, and spoiled some of his specimens," explained Rob. "He wants them to apologize and agree to let him alone. They won't do it."

"Oh, I remember now," Laughlin said. "One of them came to me about a month ago, and asked me what to do. I gave him a raking down for playing such fool tricks, and told him to go and apologize and try to patch it up with Payner. I[Pg 203] don't know which it was. I never could tell 'em apart."

"It was Duncan," said Owen. "I gave him the same advice. He's willing to do the right thing, but the other one keeps him back."

"Well, let them suffer then, that's all I've got to say," remarked Laughlin. "I've no sympathy to waste on fools or fellows who won't own up when they're in the wrong."

The senior departed, leaving Owen comforted and reassured. He could afford to wait, he told himself after his caller had gone. Let them give Patterson to Borland if they wished. Borland couldn't manage him, Rob was convinced, and when the new combination failed, Patterson would come back to him, and the pair could start again and work up together. Then it would be clear which was the better catcher, and which battery was the more useful to the school. Yes, Laughlin was right; it was better to work one's way up than to claim a high place at the outset and afterward have to change to the lowest, like the man in the parable who was bidden to a feast. But it was hard on Pat!

[Pg 204]

In the meantime Simmons had disappeared. He came in again soon, and rather shamefacedly confessed that he had been laboring with the Pecks.

"What luck?" asked Rob; "did they bluff you?"

"That's just what they did. Duncan laughed at me and Donald said he wasn't afraid of anything Payner could produce, either fresh or canned. I told them I merely wanted to warn them of what was before them, and Donald said the chief thing before them was to wipe up the ground with Payner. Then I said they'd better look out, for Payner had a gun, and Donald said he'd need it. I didn't seem to be getting on, so I cleared out."

Owen laughed. "You may as well let them alone. They're looking for trouble, and if they find it it's their own fault."

That evening Duncan stopped Simmons on the way out to Front Street and thanked him for coming to warn them. "I didn't say anything while you were there," he added, "because I knew Don and I'd have a big row about it, and I[Pg 205] thought our rows ought to be private. And we did have it after you went, red hot. I'll tell you on the fair, I'm dead sick of the whole thing; it's got on to my nerves and spoils all my fun. We have to keep the door locked all the time, we don't dare open the windows, some one has to be here when the chambermaid comes in, and we're always scared that something's going to happen,—that there'll be some crawly thing in the bed, or under it, or hidden in our pajamas, or tucked into our shoes, or coming down the chimney. I never open a bureau drawer without standing back as far as I can, for fear of something jumping in my face. It's terrible. The sword of Damocles was nothing to it. If Payner'd be satisfied with my apology, I'd go in a minute!"

"He wouldn't be," answered Simmons, with a sad shake of his head. The burden of anxiety for peace in the dormitory lay heavy on poor Simmons's shoulders!

Does some one ask why the teachers are not called in to adjudicate such differences, or how a feud like this could go on undetected by Dr. Mann on the floor below, and Mrs. Gray, the[Pg 206] matron, making her daily rounds among the rooms? To such be it explained that except in story books and school circulars, or where small chi............