The High School Boys Fishing Trip | Page 5

would be all the same to me if we were going clamming, or hunting, or on any other kind of expedition, as long as it brought us to life under canvas and sleeping in the very place where pure, fresh air is made. Here comes Dick now!"
Young Prescott came swiftly up to his friends.
"Well, I think I've gotten about everything fixed," Dick announced.
"Tell us all the plans," urged Greg eagerly.
"What's the matter with waiting until all the other fellows show up?" Prescott inquired. "That will save me from having to go twice over the same ground. While we're waiting I'll tell you Tom Reade's latest one."
"A funny trick?" queried Greg.
"Needless question!" rebuked Dave Darrin. "Tell us about the latest one, Dick."
Thereupon the leader of Dick & Co. told of Tom's scheme for making people think one of their windows broken.
"Did it sound real?" Dave demanded.
"Did it?" inquired Dick. "It fooled me. I thought surely that our rear store window had been smashed to pieces. The sound is as natural as any joker could wish. But I haven't told you the other half of the story."
Thereupon Dick told about the pitcher of water dumped so unerringly on Tom, and of Reade's flight with the crowd pursuing him.
"I'd like to have been near enough to hear just what Tom said when the water struck him," laughed Darrin.
"Did the people running after him catch him?" asked Greg.
"I don't believe so," Dick Prescott smiled. "When Tom gets under way in earnest, his middle name, as you may have observed, is Double Speed---and then a bit more."
"Who's talking about me?" gruffly demanded Reade, coming up behind the group. "Dick, you old rascal! That was a mean trick you played upon me when you hurled that water down on me last night! But say, didn't it sound just like a three dollar pane of glass going to pieces?"
"It certainly did," laughed Prescott. "And by the way, Tom, did the water, when it struck, make you think at all about what you've read of Niagara Falls?"
"Hang you!" grumbled Tom, shaking a fist. "Why did you pour the wet stuff on me like that?"
"Because I was fooled myself," Dick promptly rejoined. "I thought some rascal was plotting mischief to the store. I wanted to mark that rascal with a suit of wet clothes, then run down in the street and collar him with his wet clothes on as a marker. But Dad called me back, and so I missed you. I heard the crowd after you, however. Did you get caught, Tom?"
Reade's answer was something of a growl.
"What happened between you and the crowd?" pressed Darrin, scenting some news from Reade's mysterious, half-sulky manner.
"Never you mind," Tom growled.
"Don't tell us," Dick urged. "We can guess a few things, anyway. You've a bruised spot over your left cheek bone that looks like the mark of a punch on the face."
"Go ahead and tell us what happened, Tom," urged Greg.
Reade only scowled.
"Anyway, you must have avenged yourself," Dick smiled. "Just look at the way the knuckles of your right hand are skinned. You certainly hit someone hard."
Tom flushed quickly as he glanced at the knuckles in question, then thrust his right hand into his pocket with an air of indifference.
"Be a good fellow and tell us the finish of the adventure," begged Darrin.
"Certainly," grinned Reade. "The end of my adventure was-----"
"Yes, yes!" pressed Greg, as Tom hesitated.
"The end of the adventure came," Tom continued maliciously, "when I turned out the gas in my little room and hopped into bed. I slept like a top, thank you."
"Now, now, now!" Dick warned him. "Thomas, you're hiding something from us!"
"If I am, it's my own business, and I've a right to hide it," retorted Tom, smiling once more, though still uncommunicative.
At this moment Hazelton and Dan Dalzell, otherwise known as Danny Grin, came up. They, too, had to hear all about the bottle-breaking trick.
"How did you ever come to think of a thing like that, Tom?" asked Harry Hazelton.
"I thought of it before I tried it out at Dick's," Reade rejoined, and explained how he had helped Timmy Finbrink out of a scrape.
"What did you say the fellow's name is, Tom?" Dick asked.
"His name is Timmy Finbrink," Reade rejoined, "and he looks the part. Just one glance at Timmy, and you know that he's all that the name implies."
Then followed, for the benefit of the two latest arrivals, the story of Tom's attempt in the rear of the Prescott bookstore.
Harry and Dalzell duly admired the bruise on Tom's face.
"Now, be a gentleman, Tom," urged Harry mischievously, "and let us have a good, satisfying look at your skinned knuckles."
"Umph!" grunted Reade.
"Or, at least," pursued Harry relentlessly, "tell us just what it was into which you ran to get such a mark on your face."
"Umph!"