upper bed-chamber Mrs. Green, the matron of the school, appeared. She was a good-natured woman, but any alarm at night scared her.
“What is the trouble, Captain Putnam?” she asked, in a trembling voice. “Have burglars gotten into the school?”
“If they have they are making a big noise about it,” answered Captain Putnam. “I rather think some of the cadets are up to pranks.”
“Perhaps the school is on fire?”
“Is the school on fire?” demanded a student, who just then stuck his head out of a dormitory doorway.
“If the school is on fire I’m going to get out!” exclaimed another cadet.
“No! no! There is no fire!” cried the master of the Hall, hastily. “I believe it is nothing but some boys cutting-up. Listen!”
The sound in Mumps’s dormitory had ceased, but now came another sound from downstairs – the overturning of a chair, followed by the crash of glassware.
“That is in the dining-room, or the store-room!” shrieked Mrs. Green. “Oh, they must be burglars, sir! The boys would not make such a dreadful noise.”
“I’ll soon get at the bottom of this,” said Captain Putnam, sternly, and ran down the back stairs as rapidly as his dressing gown would permit. In the meantime many boys came out into the corridors, and George Strong, the assistant teacher, appeared.
When Captain Putnam reached the store-room he found the door locked. But the key was in the lock, and he speedily turned it and let himself in. It was almost totally dark in the room, and he had not taken two steps before he felt some broken glass under his feet. The window was open and he darted to it, to behold two students on the campus outside.
“Stop!” he called out. But instead of obeying the command the students kept on running, and disappeared from sight around an angle of the building.
“I will get at the bottom of this – I must get at the bottom of it,” the master of the Hall told himself, and lost no time in lighting up. A glance around showed him that a small stand containing some water-glasses had been tipped over and several glasses were broken.
“That stand was in the way in the dining-room, so we had it removed to here,” explained Mrs. Green. “Oh, what a mess! Be careful, sir, or you’ll cut your feet.”
“Mr. Strong, two students just leaped from this window and are outside,” said the captain, as his assistant appeared at the store-room door. “Find out who they are and bring them to my office.”
“Yes, sir,” answered George Strong, and ran for a door opening onto the campus. Once outside he saw Coulter and Ritter in the act of sneaking off towards the barns and ran after them.
“It will do you no good to run away,” he cried, as he came up and caught each by the arm. “Ah, so it is you, Coulter, and you, Ritter. You will report at once at Captain Putnam’s office.”
“We weren’t doing anything,” growled Gus Coulter.
“You can tell the captain your story.”
Meekly Ritter and Coulter marched into the Hall and to the office. They knew not what to say. They had not dreamed of being locked in the store-room, and the table with the glassware had been knocked over by Ritter in an endeavor to get the window open in the dark.
“Well, young men, what have you to say for yourselves?” demanded Captain Putnam, sternly, as he confronted the pair.
“We broke the glassware by mistake, sir,” answered Reff Ritter. “I will pay for the damage done.”
“But what were you doing in the store-room at this time of night?”
“We – er – we came down to get – er – to get some lemons,” faltered Coulter. “I – er – I had a pain in the stomach, and I thought sucking on a lemon would cure it.”
“Humph! Did you have a pain, too?” and the master of the Hall turned to Ritter.
“No, sir, but – er – Gus was so sick I thought I had best come down with him,” answered Ritter.
“Are you still sick, Coulter?”
“Why – er – the pain seems better now, sir. I guess I scared it away!” And the guilty cadet smiled faintly.
“Indeed! Well, why did you leave the store-room by way of the window?”
“Because while we were inside somebody came and locked the door on us.”
“Oh! Some other students, I presume.”
“Yes, sir. It was too dark for us to see who they were.”
“And you went down for nothing but lemons, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you go straight to bed, and after this, if you want any lemons you call one of the servants or teachers; do you hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait just a moment. What was that noise upstairs?”
“Where?”
“In the neighborhood of your dormitory.”
“I don’t know,” said Coulter.
“Maybe it was made by the boys who locked us in,” was Reff Ritter’s comment.
“I see. Well, go to bed. If I hear any more noise, or learn of any more prowling around in the dark, I’ll make an example of somebody,” added Captain Putnam, and with that the two cadets were dismissed, and they lost no time in making for their dormitory. There they learned from Mumps how the sneak had been treated by Pepper and Hogan.
“That chunk of ice was as cold as – as Greenland!” said the sneak, dismally. “It melted right on my backbone, so how could I help but make a noise. There are the two pitchers. I wish I could fire them at somebody’s head!”
“Put them out in the hall – away from our door,” ordered Ritter. “If they are found here they will make more trouble – and we’ve had enough for one night.”
“Jack Ruddy’s crowd put this up our back,” was Coulter’s comment. “Oh, how I wish I could get square with them!”
“I am glad I didn’t go downstairs,” came from Nick Paxton.
“Then you didn’t get hold of the strawberry shortcakes at all,” said Mumps.
“No, and we don’t know if they got ’em, either,” answered Coulter. “Maybe you were mistaken, Mumpsy.”
“No, I wasn’t mistaken.”
“Well, we made a fizzle of getting the cakes anyway,” growled Ritter. “I am going to bed,” and in a thoroughly bad humor he turned in, and his cronies followed his example.
The joke on Coulter, Ritter, and Mumps could not be kept, and by the next day many students were laughing at the two bullies and the sneak. This made the three very angry, but they did not dare to say anything in public, for fear of getting into trouble
