CHAPTER XXI

THE STAMP ALBUMS ARE PUT AWAY

There was a moment of silence. Then,

“How did he find out?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know,” sighed Arthur, gloomily. “He had me all right, though. ‘Where were you between ten and midnight on the thirty-first of last month?’ he asked. ‘In bed,’ I said, stretching a point; I was for awhile, you know. ‘Were you off the school grounds that night?’ he asked. ‘I’d rather not answer,’ says I. ‘I’m sorry,’ says he, ‘because I have every reason to believe that you took part in the Broadwood escapade. Do you deny it?’ ‘I haven’t anything to say, thank you,’ says I. ‘Who was with you?’ he asks. ‘That’s no good,’ says I, ‘because I’m not going to talk.’ ‘Then we will say probation until further notice,’ he says. Then I told him ‘much obliged’ and beat it.”

Alf groaned. “Isn’t it the very dickens?” he said. “And here I am, the――the ringleader, the prime villain, as you might say, getting off scot-free. Jove, I’ve a good mind to go over and give myself up!”

“What good would that do?” asked Arthur. “We talked that all over before. I’m dished, but that’s no reason why you should be.”

“That means you can’t go into the Duals, doesn’t it?” asked Dan. Arthur nodded.

“Yep. I bust my best pole yesterday and I was pretty sure then that something was going to happen; but I didn’t think of this. I thought Collins had forgotten all about that business.”

“But how the dickens did he find out?” wondered Alf. “And why doesn’t he know about the rest of us? Do you――do you suppose any one gave you away, Arthur?”

“I don’t believe so. Who would? Nobody knew but just the lot of us. I’ve been puzzling over it ever since.”

“You don’t suppose,” began Dan. He stopped and glanced at Alf. Alf frowned.

“Gerald? Of course not! Besides, what would be the use? And why tell on Arthur and not the rest of us? Besides, he wouldn’t do it.”

“No, of course he wouldn’t,” Dan agreed, with a sigh of relief.

“Oh, it wasn’t Gerald,” said Arthur. “I don’t know who it was. I guess Collins must have been doing some detective work.”

“That isn’t like him,” Alf objected. “He isn’t――isn’t sneaky you know. Perhaps, Arthur, he just suspected and took a chance.”

Arthur frowned. “He may have,” he admitted finally. “Well, anyhow, he got me for fair. And I’m out of the Duals after working like a slave all spring. That’s what riles me.”

“And that means that Broadwood will get the pole-vault,” Dan mused. “Say, fellows, I guess it would have been just as well if we hadn’t gone on that little expedition that night!”

“You’re mighty right,” agreed Alf, grimly. “I guess we were the April fools, as it has turned out.”

They discussed the affair for some time longer, until Dan and Arthur had to leave for recitations, but without discovering any silver lining to Arthur’s cloud. Nor could their speculations bring to light any plausible explanation of Mr. Collins’s sudden knowledge. The explanation was simple enough, but it was Gerald who advanced it.

“I’d give a dollar to know how he found out,” said Arthur in Gerald’s room after dinner.

“Do you mean that you don’t know?” asked Gerald, in surprise.

“No, do you?”

“Why, of course. Don’t you remember the talk we had in your room that afternoon when you let out to me about the thing?”

“Y-yes, but――” Arthur stopped, a light breaking over him. “The little rascal!” he exclaimed. “He heard every word we said, didn’t he? I’ll go over there and――and――――”

“We mentioned Alf and Dan several times,” said Gerald, thoughtfully. “Evidently he didn’t want to get them into trouble; it was just you he had it in for. And to think that you saved his life last year!”

“Helped to,” corrected Arthur in a growl. “I won’t take all the blame for it. Gee, but he’s a low-down little mucker, isn’t he? I didn’t think he’d do a thing like this, though. I wish he was a couple of years older so I could thrash him!”

“He deserves it,” said Gerald. “What will you do?”

Arthur considered a moment. Then,

“Nothing,” he sighed. “There’s nothing I can do but take my medicine. I might spank Harry, but it wouldn’t hurt him much and wouldn’t give me any especial pleasure. He’s just a little rat, that’s all he is. I wish I could get him out, but I guess they wouldn’t let him change now, so near the end of school. Well, it’s only about a month longer. Say, Gerald, I wonder if this will make any difference to you. Wonder if Collins will let you off now. He ought to.”

“Perhaps. Just the same, I’d rather have stayed on and not had this happen to you, Arthur.”

“Oh, well, what’s the difference? I can stand it.”

“It means that we lose five points in the Duals, though.”

“Hope we do. No, I don’t. I didn’t mean that. You’ll have to get Collins to let you off probation, Gerald, and go in and get those points yourself.”

But Gerald shook his head.

“I guess I won’t get on the team now, even if I do get off,” he said. “It’s too late.”

“Too late nothing! It’s almost two weeks to the Duals. Why don’t you speak to Collins?”

“Well――perhaps――” murmured Gerald. Then, “I’m awfully sorry, Arthur,” he said. Arthur nodded.

“Thanks. Well, I must be off. See you this evening maybe.”

He didn’t come across Harry Merrow until school was over in the afternoon. Then, as he didn’t care to go down to the field and have the fellows commiserate with him, he went over to his room. Harry was there, sitting at the table with a book in front of him, looking very miserable and frightened. Arthur paid no attention to him. He tossed his cap aside, got his writing materials and sat down to compose a letter home. From time to time Harry stole inquiring glances at him across the table, but Arthur never once looked up. After a half-hour the younger boy could stand it no longer.

“Aren’t you――going to say anything?” he faltered.

Arthur looked up and across coldly.

“About what?” he asked.

“About――what I did,” answered Harry.

Arthur shook his head. “What’s the use?” he asked, contemptuously. “It’s done. And I guess you won, Harry. Oh, by the way.” He arose, unlocked the closet door and pulled the stamp albums from the shelf. He tossed them down at Harry’s elbow. “There are your books,” he said.

Harry swept them to the floor and buried his face in his arms, bursting into a storm of sobs.

“I’m so sorry, Arthur! I wish I was dead! Why don’t you lick me? Won’t you please――lick me?”

“Oh, don’t be a fool,” growled the other. “No, I won’t lick you; I don’t want to touch you, you little beast!”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” Harry sobbed, “honest I didn’t! I――I was just crazy mad with you, and――and before I knew it――――”

“All right. Cut out the weeps,” answered Arthur, wearily. “I dare say you couldn’t help it. You’re just naturally a sneak, I suppose.”

“I’m not!” cried Harry, raising a tear-blurred face. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d realized――――”

“Oh, you realized all right.”

“I didn’t think――you’d have to stop track work,” wailed Harry. “And now you won’t ever like me any more; you’ll hate me. I――I’m going to get my mother to take me away from here.”

“Not a bad idea,” replied Arthur, indifferently, although the boy’s remorse seemed so genuine and his sorrow so great that he could not but feel a little less resentful than before. Harry began feeling in his pockets for his handkerchief. It had fallen under the table, and Arthur rescued it and tossed it to him. Harry dried some of the tears, but more kept coming. Arthur finished his letter, folded it and put it into its envelope. Harry eyed the missive with quivering lips.

“I suppose you told them about――what I did,” he said.

“No.” Arthur shook his head. “Your name isn’t mentioned in this letter.” There was a minute of silence, save for Harry’s subdued sniffles. Then,

“I suppose you’ll tell every one, though; all the other fellows.”

“Perhaps,” was the answer. A longer silence this time.

“I wish――you wouldn’t,” said Harry at last in a low voice.

Arthur raised his brows as he stuck a stamp on the envelope.

“I――I’d do most anything if you wouldn’t, Arthur.”

“You might have thought of that before,” replied Arthur, dryly. “I’m not making any bargains with you.” He put on his hat to take the letter to the box in front of Oxford. “You’d better pick up those books,” he said as he went out.

After the letter was mailed he considered going down to the field and looking on at practise or paying a visit to the tennis courts. But he hardly felt like mingling with his fellows yet, and so in the end he returned to his room, hoping that Harry would take himself away for awhile. But that youth was just where he had left him and a glance at his face showed that he had been crying again. The stamp albums still lay sprawled upon the floor. Arthur frowned. He was thoroughly angry with Harry――or he had been――but he wasn’t hard-hearted, and the sight of the younger boy’s tears was having its effect.

“Look here, Harry,” he said, “you and I have got to keep on together here for a good month yet, and we’d better make the best of it. Crying isn’t going to do any good. You did a mighty dirty trick and there’s no use in my saying that it doesn’t matter. After awhile I’ll get used to it, I guess, but not quite yet. I know you were pretty mad when you did it; I’m willing to believe that you wouldn’t have done it if you’d taken time to think it out; and perhaps it was my fault in a way. Anyhow, what’s done is done, and now it’s up to us to try and get along as decently as we can for the rest of the term. We won’t say anything more about it. And I won’t tell any one. The only fellow who knows is Gerald Pennimore, and he won’t say anything if I ask him not to. Wash your face and put those books away.”

“But you hate me,” muttered Harry, “and I don’t blame you.” He looked across at Arthur miserably with tear-stained face. “You do, don’t you?” he insisted. Arthur frowned impatiently. At last,

“No, I don’t hate you,” he answered. “Maybe I ought to; I don’t know. But you’re only a kid, and I guess you’re sorry, Harry.”

“I am!” exclaimed the other eagerly and earnestly. “I’d do anything in the world if I could――could undo it, Arthur!”

“Then get those plaguey books out of sight, and wash your face.”

Harry picked up the albums with a final sniffle and strode to the open window with them. Arthur leaped to his feet.

“What are you going to do?” he exclaimed.

“I’m going to pitch them out,” replied Harry. But Arthur pushed him back.

“Don’t be a silly fool,” he said, more kindly.

“Yes, I am! They――they made all the trouble!”

The attempt to lay the blame on the stamp albums made Arthur smile.

“Well, don’t do that, anyway.”

“I don’t want to see them again,” declared Harry, passionately. “Please let me throw them out.”

“No. Put them in your trunk if you don’t want to see them. Then wash your face and we’ll go for a walk. I guess a walk will do us both good.”