CHAPTER XVIII

THE GREAT TEMPTATION

I have said that all Yardley was out of doors save those who feared the rigors of the final examinations. I had for the moment forgotten Harry Merrow. Harry was not bothering his young head much about the finals. He managed to just scrape through from day to day without getting into serious difficulties with the Office, and that was about as far as his ambition went in that direction. All he asked was to be allowed to study as little as possible, and devote his days to his stamps. And so, if he wasn’t cramming hard for the final examinations, haunting the library, or burning the midnight oil, neither was he to be found on track or diamond, links or river. Harry had some very decided views on the subject of fellows who wasted life’s golden moments in chasing baseballs, digging up perfectly good cinder track with spikes, or hitting a rubber ball, hard or soft, over net or links. A championship game on the diamond or gridiron always commanded Harry’s presence, but I fear he appeared at such affairs more from a sense of duty than from any thought of pleasure to be derived from them. Time had been when he liked tennis and was a close follower of class baseball affairs, while his enthusiasm for canoeing had once come very near to resulting in a tragedy, with Harry in the principal rôle. On that occasion Gerald and Arthur had fished him out of the pond in Meeker’s Marsh far more dead than alive. But nowadays all the fresh air he demanded he could get through the open windows of his room, while as for exercise, turning the pages of his big stamp albums or mounting new additions to his fast growing collection was quite sufficient for his requirements. If any boy was ever obsessed by a mania, that boy was Harry Merrow; and his mania was stamps.

And so the invitation from Mr. Charles Cotton, of Broadwood, to exchange duplicates didn’t go unanswered. Harry wrote a letter in reply, and a correspondence covering a week resulted. Then a meeting was arranged at Wallace’s drug store, in Greenburg, and one afternoon Harry tramped off down the hill with his pockets full of little Manilla envelopes containing his duplicate treasures.

Cotton was awaiting him at one of the little tables, his valuables beside him, and the end of a straw in his mouth. The straw connected with a tall glass of lemonade. Harry made himself known, accepted the Broadwood youth’s proffer of a soda――the weather was decidedly warm for the time of year――and looked his new acquaintance over.

Cotton was a tall, lank, ungainly, and unhealthy-looking boy of fifteen or thereabouts. His clothes didn’t fit him, and his vivid red necktie was riding over the top of his collar at the back. His face was probably quite clean, but it didn’t look so, and his eyes were very pale hazel and seemed inflamed. On the whole, Harry was not favorably impressed, and for a moment he regretted the necessity of being seen in company with such an unprepossessing chap. But he remembered the next instant that Cotton was a fellow stamp collector, and that bond of sympathy was sufficient to make Harry charitable.

The glasses emptied, the two got down to business. Wares were displayed and bargains struck. Every stamp collector, it seems, has some specialty. Cotton’s was early American issues. Harry had a leaning toward rare foreign stamps, but possessed a good many “postmasters” that Cotton coveted. One by one, or in heaps of a half dozen or so, their treasures changed owners. Harry discovered, to his chagrin, that Cotton knew a good deal more about “postmasters” than he did; and having once made that discovery, he bargained with more caution. One stamp, which he had held in poor esteem, left his possession in exchange for three Venezuelans of no especial interest; and after it was safely in Cotton’s pocket, that youth made the mistake of showing his gratification. The stamp, he declared, was a rare “error”; he had only one like it, and his example was not nearly so well preserved. After that Harry grew very cautious, and I think Cotton subsequently gave good value for everything he got.

Toward the end of the negotiations the Broadwood youth drew out a leather wallet, and from some deep recess brought to light a small triangle that he presented for examination with much the same awe that a jeweler might exhibit an unusually fine pearl. Harry leaned over and looked at it. It was a blue Cape of Good Hope in remarkably good condition. Harry tried his best to seem unimpressed, but something of his admiration and covetousness had to show. Cotton, watching, saw and smiled to himself. Harry pushed the stamp away carelessly. “Not bad,” he said. “I had one of those offered me last year for three dollars. They’re not very rare, you know.”

“Aren’t, eh?” scoffed the other. “This is only the third one I’ve ever seen, Merrow. I got this from a dealer in Baltimore; paid seven dollars for it, too. I’ll let you have it for six, though, because I’ve got one like it. I bought a fellow’s collection year before last, and it was among a lot of unmounted ones. Guess he never knew how valuable it was.”

“Pshaw,” replied Harry, “I’d like to have it, but I wouldn’t give that much. I can get one from Brown, in New York, for a lot less than that.”

“I’ll bet you you can’t! You look it up in the catalogue and see what it costs! Besides, I don’t believe Brown has one for sale now. Why, they’re as scarce as hens’ teeth.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give any such price as that,” replied Harry. “I’ll trade you some revenues for it, if you like. I’ve got some dandies at home.”

“What are they?” asked Cotton, doubtfully. Harry enumerated them, and Cotton shook his head.

“Nothing doing. I’ll trade you some foreigns for them, but I’ll have to have cash for this. Why, a fellow offered me six dollars for it just the other day!”

“You ought to have let him have it,” replied Harry, nonchalantly, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll give you four dollars for it. What do you say?”

For answer Cotton smiled superciliously and slowly and carefully returned the stamp to his wallet. Harry watched it go with aching sight. He wanted it badly; had been looking for that particular stamp for a long time. But he hid his disappointment under an appearance of indifference and turned the conversation. It wasn’t long, however, before they were bargaining again over that same stamp. Cotton produced it again, and laid it temptingly in the middle of the table. Harry made concessions and so did Cotton, but their prices remained sufficiently far apart to prohibit an agreement. In the end, the precious triangle went back once more into concealment. Secretly chagrined and disappointed, but not altogether hopeless of ultimate possession of the stamp, Harry offered to stand treat to soda, and so they were soon busy again over their straws. As is natural, when two boys from rival schools get together, they were soon extolling the merits of Broadwood and Yardley. Cotton surprised Harry with his knowledge of athletics, a subject in which Harry was unable to compete, although he looked knowing, and even dared now and then to take issue with the other. Cotton, though, always proved his contentions to be right. But when the Broadwood youth began to describe, with sickening details, the awful fate awaiting the Yardley Baseball Team and Track Team when they tried conclusions with Broadwood, Harry’s patriotism drove him to protest. But Cotton’s superior knowledge of the matter won him the honors of the debate, even if it didn’t convince Harry. The latter somewhat lost his temper.

“Anyhow,” he said, maliciously, “we sprang a dandy old joke on you fellows the first of April.”

“Yes, and the fellows who did it are getting a dandy old punishment,” retorted Cotton. “I guess they wish they hadn’t been so smart.”

“They aren’t either being punished,” Harry denied. “They never got found out. Only one fellow was put on probation, and he didn’t have much to do with it.”

“That’s funny. We heard over at school that six or seven of your fellows had been suspended. Isn’t that so?”

“Of course it isn’t! Suspended! Pshaw, why, Toby wouldn’t suspend a fellow for a little thing like that! Besides, as I say, the fellows weren’t ever found out. Only Gerald Pennimore, and he didn’t do much more than go along and look on.”

“Pennimore? He’s John T.’s son, isn’t he? The fellow who ran in the cross country last fall?”

“Yes. And it’s too bad they got him, because he’s an awfully nice chap. He’s a particular friend of mine,” Harry added, ingenuously.

Cotton grinned.

“Well, I’m glad they got one of the lot. That was a silly old trick. We didn’t mind it at all.”

Harry scoffed openly. “Oh, no, you didn’t mind it! Your old principal didn’t write over and demand an apology, did he? And he didn’t send the gardener or somebody over to pick out the fellows who knocked him into the bushes, did he? A sneaky thing to do, I call it!”

“The gardener gave your fellows a good scare, though,” chuckled Cotton. “He says they ran like rabbits when he pounced out on them.”

“Did, eh? Then how does it happen he got flat on his back, I wonder. Looks more as though our fellows ran into him instead of away from him! Thompson says――” There Harry pulled up.

“Who’s Thompson?” asked Cotton.

“My roommate, Arthur Thompson.”

“Oh, was he one of them?”

“Of course he wasn’t,” answered Harry, with a fine show of indignation. “But,” he added, prompted by vanity, “I know every one of them.”

“Yes, you do!” replied Cotton, skeptically.

“I do! I could give you the name of every fellow who went to Broadwood that night.”

“Go ahead and I’ll believe you,” laughed Cotton.

“Well, I guess not! You’d go and tell the fellows over there, and then your principal would get hold of it and write to Toby about it. You run away and play!”

“What do you think I am?” asked Cotton, evidently pained and grieved by Harry’s suspicions. “Of course I wouldn’t tell. I just want to know myself, that’s all. I’ve had my suspicions all along, and I’d like to know whether they are right or not.”

“Huh,” grunted Harry. “All right; you tell me who you think did it, and I’ll tell you whether you’re right or wrong.”

But Cotton shook his head. “No,” he answered, virtuously, “I wouldn’t want to name any fellow who was really innocent, you see.”

Harry viewed him puzzledly. That was rather beyond him. Finally――――

“Oh, well, I’m not going to tell you,” he said.

“But I’ll promise not to tell a soul!”

“Then what do you want to know for?”

“Just what I said. I’ll bet I’ve got three of them at least.”

“I’ll bet you haven’t!”

“Well, then――――”

“No, I won’t!”

“Oh, all right,” said Cotton, carelessly, “but I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Merrow. You tell me who the fellows were, and I’ll let you have that stamp for just half what I asked for it; and I’ll promise, crossing my heart, not to breathe a word about it to any one.”

“Don’t see why you want to know so much,” grumbled Harry. “And, anyway, I don’t want the stamp that bad.” But he began to wonder whether it would do any one any harm if he revealed the names of the practical jokers. If Cotton kept the knowledge to himself, no one, surely, would be any the worse off. The trouble, however, was that Cotton didn’t impress Harry as being a youth who would think twice about breaking his word.

“You don’t know them in spite of all your blowing,” laughed Cotton, tantalizingly.

“I do, too,” growled Harry.

“Then――” Cotton hesitated for a moment, and went on with a palpable effort――“then I’ll _give_ you that stamp if you’ll tell, Merrow! After all, I’ve got one like it; and if you pay me cash for it, I’ll just spend it in a twinkle. Guess I’d rather satisfy my curiosity.”

Harry was doing some deep and hard thinking. Cotton pushed the stamp across the top of the little table, and Harry’s eyes glued themselves to it. He didn’t know when he’d have another chance to acquire a stamp of that sort. Certainly, he would never again have one offered him for nothing! He had a great mind to accept the bargain, only――only why did Cotton want to know? Supposing he broke his word, and told the names at Broadwood? The fellows there were still pretty angry about the trick that had been played on them, and maybe they’d get their revenge by divulging the names to the Principal.

“What do you say?” urged Cotton.

“Well――” Harry removed his gaze from the stamp long enough to fix it sternly on Cotton――“promise on your word of honor not to let any one else know if I tell you?”

“I promise, on my word of honor,” replied Cotton, emphatically, “never to breathe a word of it to any one as long as I live.”

“Then――then why do you want to know?” exploded Harry, impatiently. “That’s the funniest thing I ever heard of, Cotton!”

Cotton shook his head and smiled at his own weakness.

“Curiosity, Merrow, just as I told you. I’ve got an awful lot of curiosity. Once I want to know a thing I just can’t be satisfied until I do.” He smiled ingenuously across at Harry. Harry stared speculatively back. Finally――――

“Well, if you promise on your word of honor――” He hesitated.

His gaze went back to the stamp. “Say,” he demanded with sudden suspicion, poking the stamp with his finger, “you’re sure that isn’t a forgery?”

“Forgery! Of course not!” replied the other, indignantly. “Why, look at the water-mark if you don’t believe me!” He held it to the light and then passed it to Harry. Harry looked and was satisfied.

“Well, then,” he began again, “I’ll tell you. There was Pennimore for one. They got him.”

“Yes!” said Cotton, eagerly, leaning nearer.

“Then there was――” He stopped again. Something in Cotton’s expression made him vaguely uneasy. He frowned a moment at the stamp, and then pushed it quickly away from him across the stained table and arose from his chair. “I don’t want that,” he declared, roughly. “I’ll buy it from you some time, maybe, but I’m not going to get those fellows in trouble.”

“But I told you I wouldn’t tell!” exclaimed Cotton, eagerly.

“I know you did. Well, I’m not going to give you a chance to. I guess I’ll be going now; it’s pretty late. Glad to have met you.”

“Then you don’t want the stamp?” asked Cotton, petulantly.

Harry shook his head. “Not that bad, I guess. I’ll buy it some time when I have more cash.”

“No, you won’t,” returned Cotton, sharply, as he picked it up. “I gave you your chance. You can’t buy it now for a thousand dollars!”

“All right,” replied Harry, cheerfully. “Then I’ll get one somewhere else. I guess that isn’t the only one in the world! Good-by.”

“Hold on! How about those revenues you have? Want to trade them?”

“Not now. You had your chance, too. You couldn’t have them now for _fifty_ thousand dollars!” Harry smiled sweetly and walked to the door. Cotton, replacing the stamp in his wallet, frowned darkly.

On his way home Harry pondered the Broadwood boy’s offer. “Why, I wonder, was he so anxious to learn who the fellows were. I’ll just bet if I’d told him he’d have gone straight back and let it all out, promise or no promise!”

Crossing the bridge, a few minutes later, he stopped stock still. “That was it!” he cried. “He kept saying he wouldn’t _breathe_ a word, but he didn’t promise not to _write_! The mean little fox! My, I’m glad I didn’t do it! I――I’d like to go back and punch his head for him! I wonder if that stamp was a forgery, after all!”