CHAPTER XIII

THE APRIL FOOLS

“Arthur.”

“Huh?”

“May I talk about them for just a minute?”

“No! I told you no!”

“Well ... but ... I’ve got a letter from Broadwood――――”

“Eh? Broadwood?” Arthur Thompson turned from the window out of which he had been scowling for several minutes, and glanced at Harry Merrow in sudden suspicion. “What about Broadwood?”

“Why,” answered Harry, eagerly, fluttering the pages of a stamp album in his excitement, “there’s a fellow there named Cotton, and he’s written to me asking if I will exchange duplicates with him. How do you suppose he heard of me?”

“Don’t know, I’m sure. Dare say, though, he saw your name in the catalogue.”

“But I mean how did he know I was a stamp collector?”

“Oh, crime will out. Maybe he saw you and read your guilt on your countenance.” Harry chuckled. He had already discovered that laughing at a person’s jokes was an easy way to ingratiate oneself. In the present case, however, the rule didn’t work.

“Don’t do that,” said Arthur, sharply, returning to his moody inspection of the Yard, “you sound like a woodchuck.”

“I’m going to send him a list of my duplicates,” continued Harry, dodging the rebuff. “Maybe he has something I want.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Cotton.”

“Oh. Well, look out he doesn’t palm off forgeries on you. Cotton may not be as soft as he sounds. There’s Durfee.” Up went the window and Arthur thrust his head out into the rain and hailed the boy below. “Oh, Durfee! Go slow; I want to see you!”

“He can’t cheat me,” said Harry, nodding his head wisely. “I guess I know the value of stamps pretty well by this time, and if he thinks――――”

“For the love of mud, shut up!” commanded Arthur, crossly, as he seized his cap. “You’d drive an angel mad with your silly chatter! Pitch that book down and get out of doors before I come back and tan your hide for you!”

“I can’t go out in this rain,” objected Harry.

“You’ve got a raincoat, haven’t you?”

“It isn’t here,” said Harry, triumphantly. “I loaned it to a fellow.”

“Then go and get it. If I find you here when I come back――” The rest was lost as Arthur slammed the door behind him. Harry grinned.

“My, but he’s in a nasty temper,” he murmured. “And he thinks I don’t know what’s up. I guess if he knew I knew what I know――” He paused a moment and pondered the construction of that sentence――“he wouldn’t be so fresh with me!”

Harry Durfee had sought the doorway for protection from the rain, and Arthur found him there. “I suppose you’ve heard about Gerald?” the latter asked. Durfee nodded gloomily.

“Yes, and I was going over to Alf’s. Come on over and let’s see if there’s anything to be done.”

They found Alf, Tom, Dan, and Gerald in Number 7. Only Roeder and Chambers were missing. For Durfee’s benefit Gerald again went over what had happened in the Office that morning. When he had finished Durfee asked:

“What do you think about that spreading the punishment, fellows? Think if we fessed up he’d be easy with the lot of us, or would we all get probation?”

“Blessed if I know,” answered Tom. “It sounds all right, but it all depends on what Collins calls a light punishment. I’m inclined to be skeptical, Harry.”

“Me, too,” said Alf. “It would mean probation for the lot of us. Mind you, I’m willing to take my medicine if it will do any good. Only I look at it this way, fellows. If Tom and Roeder and Thompson are put on probation, it spells defeat for the Track Team. If Harry and Dan and I are put on probation it means the same thing in baseball. No one is sorrier than I am that Gerald is in a fix, but I don’t believe that our owning up would make it much easier for him. And first of all, there is the school to think of. Maybe that sounds selfish, but it isn’t.”

“N-no, I guess it’s the sensible way to look at it,” replied Durfee. “I’m mighty sorry about you, though, Pennimore.”

“Look here,” exclaimed Arthur. “Why not leave it to Gerald? If he thinks it will do him any good, why, I, for one, will trot over to Collins this minute.”

“It won’t,” answered Gerald, shaking his head. “And even if it would, I wouldn’t let you do it. It wasn’t your fault that I butted in and went along. It was my own. I can stand it, all right. I wish he would let me keep on with the Track Team, but he won’t. Still, my being out of it won’t make any difference, I guess, while, as Alf says, if you and Tom and Roeder were lost we would get beaten as sure as sure! And without Durfee and Alf and Dan the Baseball Team might as well go out of training.”

“Well, that’s a mighty decent way to look at it, Gerald,” said Tom, “but I think it’s the only fair one. I guess we are all of us ready to take our share of the blame and the punishment if it will do any one any good.”

“It won’t, though; no one, that is, but Collins,” said Alf, morosely. “I feel a good deal like a skunk for getting you fellows into such a mess.”

“Oh, forget it!” said Tom, heartily. “We aren’t kids to be led into trouble with our eyes shut. We all knew what we were doing, and we wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for the risk. It strikes me, though, that Collins may get us without our help. His mention of Dan and Alf looks as though he were getting warm.”

“I think he just guessed at them,” said Gerald.

“Did he say how long you were to be on?” Durfee asked.

“No. Until further notice.”

“Well, I think it was rotten of him to take away your letter, Gerald,” Alf said, indignantly. “I never heard of that being done before. And, by Jove, I don’t believe he has any right to do it!”

“I guess it’s a case of might makes right,” said Tom. “Well, we’re all agreed, then, are we, that we’re to keep mum? I don’t think I’ve heard your dulcet voice lately, Dan.”

“I don’t like it,” replied Dan, explosively. “I think it’s cowardly, Tom. We are all in it, and we all had more to do with it than Gerald. I’m going to own up and take my punishment.”

There was a silence. Then,

“That means we all will,” said Alf, quietly. “Only――what’s the use, Dan? What good’s it going to do?”

“It’s the――the manly thing to do,” declared Dan.

“Now, look here,” said little Durfee, earnestly. “Here’s the thing in a nutshell. We’ve gone and made a lot of fools of ourselves. We all ought to have known better. We hadn’t any right to risk the success of the school Track Team and Baseball Nine for the sake of a silly prank. And Dan and I are worse than the rest of you, for we are both captains, and our first duty is to the school. I fess up that I was wrong, mighty wrong, and you can just bet that I’m not going to do any such thing again while I owe my――my ability and efforts to my school or college. I’ve learned my lesson just as well as though Collins had sent me home. I guess we all have.”

He looked around and read affirmation in the faces of the others.

“Now, then, I say that if you’ve learned your lesson it isn’t going to do you any good to be punished. Maybe it would give faculty satisfaction to make an example of us, but I don’t propose to get punished just for that. I’m no blooming philanthropist. The thing’s over with, and our stunt now is to behave ourselves and work like the dickens to win from Broadwood on the track and diamond. Isn’t that about it?”

“Right-o,” agreed Alf.

“That’s what I think,” said Tom. Durfee looked at Dan.

“What do you say, Dan?”

“Persuaded, but not convinced,” answered Dan, with a smile. “I guess I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I went to Collins and owned up, but perhaps I owe it to the school and the team to keep mum and――――”

“Seems to me,” interrupted Arthur, “we’re losing sight of the main question, which is: Will it help Gerald any? If it won’t, that ends it, to my mind, because the law doesn’t insist that a chap must give himself away. As long as faculty doesn’t find us out it isn’t up to us to help them.”

“That’s so,” said Durfee. “And I guess there isn’t any question of benefiting Pennimore. I’ll tell you what we can do, though, fellows, we can see that he doesn’t have any trouble with his studies. He will have to have C’s, or better, you know. I’ll take him on in math, and the rest of you can help him with other things. How will that do, Gerald?”

“It’s very nice of you,” Gerald replied, “but I guess I can manage all right alone. If I can’t I’ll ask you to help me.”

“That’s settled, then,” said Alf. “And now, gentlemen, I move you that the S. P. M. disbands!”

“Wait,” said Tom. “Not before we officially change its motto, Alf.”

“What to?” asked Alf.

“‘O you April Fools!’” answered Tom, softly.