Barbour Ralph Henry
The Turner Twins

CHAPTER VII – HIGH SCHOOL ACCEPTS DEFEAT

A week passed, and the twins began to feel like old residents. They had ceased being “the Turner twins” to acquaintances, although others still referred to them so, and their novelty had so far worn off that they could enter a classroom or walk side by side across the yard without being conscious of the rapt, almost incredulous stares of the beholders. To merely casual acquaintances they were known as Ned and Laurie; to a few friends they had become Nid and Nod. Kewpie was responsible for that. He had corrupted “Ned” into “Nid,” after which it was impossible for Laurie to be anything but “Nod.” Laurie had demurred for a time, demanding to be informed who Nod had been. Kewpie couldn’t tell him, being of the hazy belief that Nid and Nod were brothers in some fairy story he had once read, but he earnestly assured Laurie that both had been most upright and wholly estimable persons. Anyhow, Laurie’s objections wouldn’t have accomplished much, for others had been prompt to adopt the nicknames and all the protests in the world wouldn’t have caused them to drop them. These others weren’t many in number, however: Kewpie and Thurman Kendrick and Lee Murdock and George Watson about made up the list of them at this time.

Kendrick was Kewpie’s room-mate, a smallish, black-haired, very earnest youth of sixteen, which age was also Kewpie’s. Thurman was familiarly known as “Hop,” although the twins never learned why. He was a candidate for quarter-back on the eleven and took his task very seriously. Lee Murdock was one of the baseball crowd, and Laurie had scraped acquaintance with him on the diamond during a practice game. The word “scraped” is used advisedly, for Laurie, in sliding to second base, had spiked much of the skin from Lee’s ankle. Of such incidents are friendships formed! Lee was two years older than Laurie, a big, rather raw-boned fellow with a mop of ash-colored hair and very bright blue eyes.

George Watson was sixteen, an upper middler, and, as Laurie frequently assured him, no fit associate for a respectable fellow. To the latter assertion George cheerfully agreed, adding that he always avoided such. He came from Wyoming and had brought with him a breeziness of manner that his acquaintances, rightly or wrongly, described as “wild and woolly.” Of the four, Kewpie and George were more often found in company with the twins.

There had been four lessons in kicking on an open lot behind the grammar school, two short blocks away, and while Ned had not yet mastered the gentle art of hurtling a football through the air, Kewpie was enthusiastic about his pupil’s progress. “Why, geewhillikins, Nid,” he broke forth after the fourth session, “you’re a born kicker! Honest you are! You’ve got a corking swing and a lot of drive. You – you’ve got real form, that’s what you’ve got. You understand. And you certainly do learn! Of course, you haven’t got it all from me, because you’ve been punting in practice two or three times, but I take some of the credit.”

“You’ve got a right to,” responded Ned. “You’ve taught me a lot more than I’ve learned on the field. Gee, if it hadn’t been for you I’d been afraid even to try a punt over there! You ought to see the puzzled way that Pope looks at me sometimes. He can’t seem to make me out, because, I suppose, Joe Stevenson told him I was a crackajack. Yesterday he said, ‘You get good distance, Turner, and your direction isn’t bad, but you never punt twice the same way!’”

“Well, you don’t,” laughed Kewpie. “But you’ll get over that just as soon as I can get it into your thick head that the right way’s the best and there’s only one right!”

“I know,” said Ned, humbly. “I mean to do the way you say, but I sort of forget.”

“That’s because you try to think of too many things at once. Stop thinking about your leg and just remember the ball and keep your eyes on it until it’s in the air. That’s the secret, Nid. I heard Joe telling Pinky the other day that you’d ought to shape up well for next year.”

“Next year!” exclaimed Ned, dubiously. “Gee! mean to tell me I’m going through all this work for next year?”

“Well, you might get a place this year, for all you know,” replied Kewpie, soothingly. “Just keep on coming, Nid. If you could only – well, if you had just a bit more speed now, got started quicker, you know, Pinky would have you on the second squad in no time, I believe. You’re all right after you get started, but – you understand.”

“I do the best I know how,” sighed Ned. “I suppose I am slow on the get-away, though. Corson is always calling me down about it. Oh, well, what do I care? I don’t own it.”

“I’d like to see you make good, though,” said Kewpie. “Besides, remember the honor of the Turners!”

Ned laughed. “Laurie will look after that. He’s doing great things in baseball, if you believe him, and it wouldn’t be right for us to capture all the athletic honors.”

“You make me weary!” grunted Kewpie. “Say, don’t you California chaps ever have any pep?”

“California, old scout, is famous for its pep. We grow it for market out there. Why, I’ve seen a hundred acres planted to it!”

“You have, eh? Well, it’s a big shame you didn’t bring a sprig of it East with you, you lazy lummox! Some day I’m going to drop a cockle-burr down your back and see if you don’t show some action!”

Hillman’s started her season on the following Saturday with Orstead High School. As neither team had seen much practice, the contest didn’t show a very high grade of football. The teams played four ten-minute quarters, consuming a good two hours of elapsed time in doing it, their members spending many precious moments prone on the turf. The weather was miserably warm for football and the players were still pretty soft.

Kewpie derived great satisfaction from the subsequent discovery that he had dropped three quarter pounds and was within a mere seven pounds of his desired weight. Had he played the game through instead of yielding the center position to Holmes at the beginning of the last half, he might have reached his goal that afternoon. Ned and Laurie wounded him deeply by declaring that there was no apparent improvement in his appearance.

Ned saw the game from the substitutes’ bench, and Laurie from the stand. High School turned out a full attendance and, since Hillman’s was outnumbered two to one, “O. H. S.” colors and cheers predominated. Laurie sat with Lee Murdock, who, as a baseball enthusiast, professed a great scorn of football. (There was no practice on the diamond that afternoon.) Lee amused himself by making ridiculous comments in a voice audible for many yards around.

“That’s piffle!” he declared on one occasion, when the ground was strewn with tired, panting players. “The umpire said, ‘Third down,’ but if they aren’t three quarters down, I’ll treat the crowd! The trouble with those fellows is that they didn’t get enough sleep last night. Any one can see that. Why, I can hear that big chap snoring ’way over here!” Again, “That brother of yours is playing better than any of them,” he asserted.

“Ned? Why, he isn’t in! He’s on the bench down there.”

“Sure! That’s what I mean. You don’t see him grabbing the ball away from Brattle and losing two or three yards at a time. No, sir; he just sits right there, half asleep, and makes High School work for the game. Every time he doesn’t take the ball, Nod, he saves us three or four yards. He’s a hero, that’s what he is. If Mulford would get all the rest of them back on the bench, we might win.”

“You’re crazy,” laughed Laurie.

During the intermission, Laurie’s wandering gaze fell on two girls a dozen seats away. One, whom he had never seen before, displayed a cherry-and-black pennant and belonged unmistakably to the high school cohort. She was a rather jolly-looking girl, Laurie decided, with a good deal of straw-colored hair and a pink-and-white skin. Her companion was evidently divided as to allegiance, for she had a cherry-and-black ribbon pinned on the front of her dress and wore a dark-blue silken arm-band. For a moment Laurie wondered why she looked familiar to him. Then he recognized her as Polly Deane. The two girls appeared to be alone, although some boys in the row behind were talking to them.

So far, the twins had not been back to the little shop on Pine Street, but Laurie resolved now that he would drop around there very soon and pay his bill before his money was gone. After paying the school bill for the first half-year, he and Ned had shared slightly more than twenty dollars, but since then there had been many expenses. They had each had to purchase playing togs and stationery, and, finally, had donated two dollars apiece to the football fund at the mass-meeting Friday night of the week before.

Viewed from a financial standpoint, that meeting hadn’t been a great success, and it was no secret that, unless more money was forthcoming, the team would be obliged to cancel at least one of its away-from-home games. But it had resulted in bringing out a big field of candidates, and there had been a lot of enthusiasm. The next day, viewing his reduced exchequer, Laurie had ruefully observed that he guessed a dollar would have been enough to give, but Ned had called him a “piker” and a “tight-wad” and other scornful things. Yesterday Ned had borrowed half a dollar, which was more than a fourth of Laurie’s remaining cash; and the first of October was still a week distant. Realizing the latter fact, Laurie changed his mind about settling his account at the Widow Deane’s. But, he reflected, with another friendly glance in Polly’s direction, it wouldn’t be right to withhold his trade from the store. And he wasn’t anywhere near the limit of indebtedness yet!

Two listless periods followed the intermission, the only inspiring incident coming when, near the end of the third quarter, Pope, Hillman’s full-back, foiled in his attempt to get a forward pass away, smashed past the enemy and around his left end for a run that placed the pigskin six yards short of the last white line. From there the home team managed to push its way to a touch-down, the third and last score of the day. The final figures were 10 to 7 in Hillman’s favor, and neither side was very proud of the outcome.

Ned returned to Number 16 half an hour later in a most critical frame of mind, and spent ten minutes explaining to Laurie just when and how the school team had failed. At last Laurie interrupted him to ask, “Have you told this to Mr. Mulford, Ned?”

“Mr. Mulford? Why – oh, go to the dickens!”

“Seems to me he ought to know,” said Laurie, gravely.

“That’s all right. You can be sarcastic if you like, but I’m talking horse-sense. You see a lot of things from the bench that you don’t see from the stand. Besides, you’ve got to know football to understand it. Now you take – ”

“I beg your pardon! Did you say anything about understanding football?”

“Well, I understand a lot more about it than you do,” replied the other, warmly. “I’ve been playing it a week, haven’t I?”

“Sure, but I’ll bet you don’t know how much a safety counts!”

“I don’t need to. That’s up to the referee. But I know some football, just the same. And I punted forty-seven yards yesterday, too!”

“In how many punts?” inquired Laurie, innocently.

Ned threw a book at him and the subject was closed.

In his own line, baseball, Laurie was not setting the world on fire. He was gaining a familiarity with the position of center fielder on the scrub nine, and batting practice was at least not doing him any harm. But he certainly had displayed no remarkable ability; and if Ned had gained a notion to the contrary, it was merely because it pleased Laurie to fool him with accounts of imaginary incidents in which he, Laurie, had shone most brilliantly. As Ned knew even less about baseball than he had known of football, almost any fairy-tale “went” with him, and Laurie derived much amusement thereby; decidedly more, in fact, than he derived from playing!

On Monday morning Laurie dragged Ned over to the Widow Deane’s for ginger-ale, professing a painful thirst. The Widow greeted them pleasantly, recalling their names, and provided them with the requested beverage. Laurie’s thirst seemed to have passed, for he had difficulty in consuming his portion. When, presently, he asked politely about Polly, it developed that that young lady was quite well enough to attend high school as usual. Laurie said, “Oh!” and silently promised himself that the next time he got thirsty it would be in the afternoon. Ned ate two doughnuts and was hesitating over raspberry tarts when Laurie dragged him away. “Can’t you think of anything but eating?” demanded the latter, disgustedly. Ned only blinked.

“Ginger-ale always makes me hungry,” he explained calmly.

Two days later, the twins awoke to cloudy skies, and by mid-forenoon a lazy drizzle was falling, which later turned to a downright tempest of wind and rain. At four the baseball candidates scooted to the field-house for cover, although, peering forth through a drenched window, Laurie discerned the football-players still at work. Lee Murdock said he guessed the equinoctial storm had come, and that if it had there’d be no practice for a couple of days. Laurie tried to look broken-hearted and failed dismally. Taking advantage of a lull in the downpour, he and Lee, with many of the others, set forth for school. They were still far short of the gymnasium, however, when the torrent began again, and it was a wet, bedraggled, and breathless crowd that presently pushed through the door.

George Watson, who had been playing tennis before the rain started, was philosophically regarding a pair of “unshrinkable” flannel trousers which, so he declared, had already receded an inch at the bottoms. It was George who suggested that, after changing to dry clothing, they go over to the Widow’s and have ice-cream at his expense. Not possessing a rain-coat of his own, Laurie invaded Number 15 and borrowed Kewpie’s. It was many sizes too large, but it answered. The Widow’s was full when he and George and Lee got there, and the pastry counter looked as though it had been visited by an invading army. There was still ice-cream, though, and the three squeezed into a corner and became absorbedly silent for a space.

Polly was helping her mother, and Laurie exchanged greetings with her, but she was far too busy for conversation. Lee treated to a second round of ice-cream, and afterward Laurie bought a bag of old-fashioned chocolates. He hoped Polly would wait on him, but it was Polly’s mother who did so and asked after his brother as she filled the paper sack.

“I do hope you’re looking after him and that he hasn’t eaten those raspberry tarts yet,” she said pleasantly.

“Yes’m,” said Laurie. “I mean, he hasn’t.” He thought it surprising that the Widow Deane was able to tell them apart. Even Kewpie and George frequently made mistakes.

It was still pouring when they went out again, and they hurried up the street and around the corner into School Park, their progress somewhat delayed by the fact that Laurie had placed the bag of candy in an outside pocket of Kewpie’s capacious rain-coat and that all three had difficulty in finding it. Lee had just popped a big chocolate into his mouth and George was fumbling into the moist bag when the clouds opened suddenly and such a deluge fell as made them gasp. In distance they were but a long block from school; but with the rain descending on them as though poured from a million buckets, their thought was of immediate shelter.

“Wow!” yelped Lee. “Let’s get out of this! Here’s a house. Come on!”

There was an opening in a high hedge, and a short brick walk from which the drops were rebounding knee-high, and, seen dimly through the deluge, a porch at the end of it. They reached it in what Laurie called three leaps and a jump, and, under shelter of the roof, drew breath and looked back into the gray welter. The park was invisible, and even the high lilac hedge was only a blurred shape. Lee had to shout to make himself heard above the rain.

“Wonder who lives here,” he said. “I don’t remember this house.”

“Sure you do!” said George. “This is the Coventry house. We’re on the side porch.”

“Oh!” Lee gazed doubtfully into the rain. “Well, anyway, it’ll do. Gee, my trousers are soaked to the knees! How long do you suppose this will keep up?”

“You said for two days,” answered Laurie, cheerfully, trying to dry his neck with a moist handkerchief.

“I mean this shower, you chump!”

“Call this a shower? What’s a cloud-burst like in this part of the country, then?”

“We don’t have such things,” answered George, who was peering through a side-light into the dim interior. “Say, I thought this place was empty,” he continued. “I can see chairs and a table in there.”

“No; some one rented it this fall,” said Lee. “I noticed the other day that the front door was open and the grass had been cut. I wouldn’t want to live in the place, though.”

“Why?” inquired Laurie.

But, before any answer came, the door was suddenly opened within a few inches of George’s nose and a voice said:

“You fellows had better come inside until it’s over.”

CHAPTER VIII – IN THE MISER’S HOUSE

The invitation came from a boy of about sixteen, a slim, eminently attractive chap, who smiled persuasively through the aperture. Laurie knew that he had seen him somewhere, but it was not until they had followed, somewhat protestingly, into a hallway and from there into a large and shadowy drawing-room that he recognized him as one of the day pupils. Lee, it seemed, knew him slightly and called him by name.

“We oughtn’t to come in here,” Lee apologized. “We’re soaking wet, Starling.”

“It doesn’t matter,” answered their host. “Wait till I find a match and we’ll have a fire here.”

“Don’t bother, please,” George protested. “We’re going right on in a minute.”

“Might as well get dry a bit first. The fire’s all laid.” The boy held a match at the grate and in a moment the wood was snapping merrily. “Pull up some chairs, fellows. Here, try this. Some rain, isn’t it?”

“Rather,” agreed Lee. “By the way, do you know Turner? And Watson?” The three boys shook hands. “I didn’t know you lived here,” Lee continued. “Saw the house had been taken, but didn’t know who had it. Corking big place, isn’t it?”

Starling laughed. “It’s big all right, but it’s not so corking. Let me have that rain-coat, Turner. The rooms are so frightfully huge that you get lost in them! I have the bedroom above this, and the first morning I woke up in it I thought I was in the Sahara Desert! This was the only place we could find, though, that was for rent, and we had to take it. Dad came here on short notice and we didn’t have much time to look around. Pull up closer to the fire, Watson, and get your feet dry. I’ve got some slippers upstairs if you want to take your shoes off.”

“No, thanks. I guess the wet didn’t get through. I’ve seen you over at school, haven’t I?”

“Yes, I’m a day boy; one of the ‘Hep, heps!’”

Lee grinned. “Sort of a mean trick, that, Starling, but they always do it every year.”

“Wish I’d known about it beforehand. I’d have sneaked over a fence and through a window. It was fierce! I was the last fellow to get in this fall. Dad made application in August, and some fellow who had entered in the spring changed his mind; otherwise I’d have had to go to the high school.”

“That would have been an awful fate,” said George, gravely.

“Oh, I wouldn’t have minded. I like Hillman’s, though. Do any of you chaps play tennis?”

“I try to,” answered George.

“Wish you’d give me a game some day. Tennis is about the only thing I know much about, and I saw some dandy courts over at the field.”

“Glad to,” George assured him. “Any day you like, Starling. I’m not much of a player, though, so don’t expect a lot.”

“Guess you’re good enough to handle me,” laughed the other. “I like it better than I can play it. How about to-morrow afternoon?”

“Suits me,” answered George. “Three-thirty?”

“Fine! I’m going to get Dad to build a court in the yard here, if I can. There’s lots of room, but there’s a tumble-down old grape-arbor right in the middle.”

“Yes, there’s surely room enough,” agreed Lee. “We used to come over here last fall and get pears – there’s a dandy seckel tree back there. I’d say there was room for two or three courts if some of the trees were cut down.”

“What could he do with three of them?” asked Laurie.

“I suppose we’d have to get the owner’s permission to even take that rickety old arbor down,” Starling said.

“I thought the owner was dead,” Lee observed.

George chuckled. “If he was dead he wouldn’t be the owner, you simple! Old Coventry died three or four years ago, but somebody owns the place, of course. If what they tell of the old chap is true, it must have broken his heart to know he couldn’t take the place with him! Maybe he took his money with him, though. Anyway, the story goes that he had slathers of it, and they could only find a couple of thousands when he died.”

“What was he, a miser?” asked Starling.

“Yes, one of the sort you read about in the stories. Lived here all alone for years and years with only a negro servant. They say you could never see a light in the place at night, and he never went off the front porch more than a couple of times a year. Then a carriage came for him and he got in and went down to the boat. He didn’t use the train because it cost too much. Of course, when he died, folks expected to find that he had left a mint of money; but all any one could discover was about two thousand dollars in one of the banks here – that, and this property. The heirs, whoever they were, pretty near tore the insides out of the house, they say, looking for coin, but they didn’t get any thing.”

“And at night the old codger’s ghost walks around,” added Lee; “and if you follow him, he’ll take you to the place the money’s hidden.”

“Honest?” exclaimed Starling, joyfully. “Gosh, that’s great! I always wanted to live in a house with a ghost.”

“I’m sorry, then,” said George, “for I just made that part up.”

“You did?” Lee looked incredulous. “Where do you come in? I’ve heard that ever since I came here.”

“No, sir; you may have heard the rest of the story, but not the part about the ghost. I wrote the yarn up in my junior year for an English comp., and tacked on the ghost feature as a sort of added climax. Got good marks, too, and the Orstead paper published the thing. I’ll show it to you, if you like.”

Lee looked unconvinced still, and Starling disappointed. “Well, it’s a good story, anyway, and makes the place more interesting. Some day I’ll have a look myself for the hidden millions.”

“Guess the old chap never had that much,” said George. “Thirty or forty thousand is about what he was supposed to have salted away.”

“Scarcely worth bothering about,” observed Laurie, with a yawn.

“But look here, what became of the servant?” asked Starling. “Maybe he got the dough and made off with it.”

“Lots of folks thought that,” replied George; “but the theory didn’t pan out for a cent. The negro stuck around here for quite a while and then ambled off somewhere. He claimed that old Coventry died owing him a month’s wages, and tried to get some one to pay him, but I guess he never got any of it, if it was really owing.”

“Where did he go to?” asked Starling.

“I don’t know. New York City, I think.”

“I’ll bet he either had the money or knew where it was,” declared Starling, with conviction. “Don’t you see, fellows, he did just what any one would do in his case? He stuck around so he wouldn’t be suspected. If he’d gone right off, folks would have said he was trying to avoid being asked about the money. And then he faked up the yarn about the old gentleman owing him wages. A first-class detective would have got trace of the coin, I’ll wager!”

“You’ve been reading Sherlock Holmes,” laughed Lee. “Why don’t you follow up your clue, find the negro, and restore the lost wealth to the starving heirs?”

“Huh! If he did get the money, he’s where even Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t find him by this time. Some one should have followed the fellow and kept watch on him right then. How old was he, Watson?”

“About fifty, I guess. They say he had white whiskers, anyway. Oh, he didn’t know any more than he said he did. He was all right. He had been with old Coventry for years and years, one of those old-time family servants, you know, honest and faithful. Why, he went on something fierce when the old chap died!”

“Say, how much of this guff is real and how much of it is English composition?” asked Lee, suspiciously. “How do you know the negro took on when the old codger died? You weren’t here.”

“Maybe I heard it,” replied George, grinning.

“Yes, and maybe you just made it up, like the stuff about the ghost,” Lee retorted sarcastically. “I’ve heard the yarn two or three times, but I never heard that the negro had white whiskers or that he went into mourning!”

“It’s a fact, though,” declared the other, warmly. “I prepared mighty well on that comp.; talked with half a dozen persons who knew the story. Got most of the stuff from the Widow Deane, though. Old Coventry had been dead only about two years then and folks were still talking about him. The Widow doesn’t think the old chap had nearly as much money as he was supposed to have.”

“She has the little store around on the back street?” asked Starling.

“Yes. She took that as her share.”

“Her share of what?” demanded Lee.

“Why, of the estate. Old Coventry owned the whole half-block right through from Walnut Street to Pine. She rented that house from him until he died; paid a good stiff price, too; and then, when the estate was finally settled, she took it as her share, although she had to pay the other heirs something because they claimed that it was worth more than she had a right to.”

“Look here,” said Lee, “do you mean that the Widow Deane was one of old Coventry’s heirs?”

“Of course! Didn’t you know it? She was a half-sister. She lived over in New Jersey, she told me, until her husband died. Then she wrote to old Coventry, asking him to help her because she didn’t have much money, and he invited her to come here. She thought he meant to give her a home with him; but when she got here, the best he would do was rent her that little house around on Pine Street and stock it up for her as a store. Then he built a fence between the two places. It used to be open right through.”

“Gee, you certainly know a lot of ancient history!” marveled Lee.

“I believe in being thorough,” laughed George. “When I tackle a subject I get a fall out of it.”

“So when I trail the murderer – I mean the thief,” reflected Starling, “I’ll be doing the old lady back there a good turn, won’t I?”

“Surest thing you know!” agreed George.

“And she needs the money, I guess. I don’t believe she makes a fortune out of that emporium. And that daughter of hers is a nice kid, too.”

“How many other heirs are there to share in the money when Starling finds it?” asked Laurie.

“I don’t know. Quite a bunch, I believe. The old chap wasn’t married, and the heirs are nephews and nieces and things like that. The Widow’s the only one living around here, though.”

“Well, when I do find it,” laughed Starling, “I’ll keep it quiet and hand it all over to the Widow.”

“He wants to make a hit with Polly,” said Lee. “He’s a fox.”

“I’ve never seen her,” Starling denied.

“Well, she’s a mighty pretty girl,” George avowed. “If you don’t believe me, ask Nod.”

Laurie looked intensely innocent and very surprised. “Why me?” he asked blandly.

George shook his head, grinning. “You can’t get away with it, son! Think I didn’t see you making love to the old lady this afternoon?”

“Well,” Laurie laughed, “I thought it was Polly you spoke of.”

“Sure, but she was busy waiting on a bunch of juniors and so you made up to the Widow. We saw you smirking and talking sweet to her, didn’t we, Lee? Butter wouldn’t have melted in the dear lamb’s mouth. And I thought the old lady seemed rather taken with him, too; didn’t you, Lee?”

“Rather! It was positively sickening! Talk about foxes – ”

“Oh, dry up and blow away!” muttered Laurie. “Say, the rain’s stopped now – pretty nearly.”

“Wants to get away from the embarrassing subject,” George confided to Starling. “Well, I never desert a pal, Nod. Come on, we’ll trot along. Much obliged for taking us in, Starling. Hope we haven’t ruined your rug. Half-past three to-morrow, if the courts are dry. I’ll meet you in School Hall.”

“Glad to have you drop around at my room some time,” said Lee. “I’m in West; Number 7.”

“Same here,” added Laurie; “16 East Hall. Thanks, Starling.”

“You’re welcome. Come in again, fellows. When I get that tennis-court fixed up, we’ll have some fun here. You needn’t wait for that, though. I’d like you to meet my father and aunt. No one’s at home just now. I say, better take a couple of umbrellas.”

“Not worth it, thanks,” answered Lee. “After that deluge, this is just an April shower. So long!”

Lee’s statement wasn’t much of an exaggeration, and the three continued their way to the school unhurriedly. George remarked gloomily that it didn’t look awfully promising for tennis on the morrow, adding: “I’ll bet that chap’s a corking good player, too.”

“Maybe you’ll learn a little about the game from him,” said Laurie, sweetly. “How old do you say he is?”

“Starling? Oh, seventeen, maybe. He’s in upper middle.”

“Sixteen, more likely,” said George. “He seems a decent sort, eh? How did you come to know him?”

“I didn’t really know him. He’s in some of my classes and we’ve spoken a couple of times. Rather a – an interesting kind of chap. Wonder what his father does here. Funny place for him to come to. He spoke of an aunt, but didn’t say anything about a mother. Guess she’s dead. Auntie probably keeps house for them.”

As they entered the gate George chuckled and Laurie asked, “What’s your trouble, Old-Timer!”

“I was just thinking what a joke it would be if Starling took that stuff seriously about the hidden money and began to hack away the woodwork and dig up the cellar floor!”