ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
"Hello! What's up?" demanded Sid, as he and Phil, about to leave their
apartment, were almost hurled from their feet when Tom burst in. "What
in the name of the Gaelic Wars ails you, Tom? Has some one else left the
team; or is the college on fire?"
"Yes, why this unseemly haste?" came from Phil, as he sank back on the
sofa and endeavored to recover his breath, which was almost at the
vanishing point because of the suddenness of his chum's advent.
"Haste? I guess you'd be in a hurry if you just heard what I did!"
exploded Tom. "I'm on the track of our chair! What's the matter with you
fellows, anyhow? I thought you were coming out and help me get on the
trail of it."
"Oh, Sid had to look at Miss Harrison's picture before he could venture
out," replied Phil, with a mocking grin at his chum. And then he dodged
to escape a book, while Tom murmured:
"You old misogynist! And me working like a detective to get on the trail
of our beloved chair! What kept you in, Phil?"
"Couldn't get his tie fixed to suit him," responded Sid, thus getting
one in on the quarter-back, who was rather noted for his taste in neck
scarfs.
"Well, come on, now!" urged the pitcher. "We've got time enough to get
to town and back before the 'eats,' and if we go now Proc. Zane won't be
so apt to spot us."
"What's the game?" asked Sid.
"Second-hand Shylock has our chair," explained Tom briefly, as he told
of the information Wallops had given him. "We'll go talk to him like a
Dutch uncle, and make him tell how he dared come into our rooms while we
were at practice. Come on!"
"The nerve of Komsky!" cried Phil. "I'm with you," and the three lads
hurried from the college, crossed the campus, and were headed for a
trolley that would take them to the village. They saw the car coming,
and were about to sprint for it, when Tom became aware of the figure of
a small, fussy little man striding toward them from behind a row of
trees, holding up his hand as if to command a halt.
"Zane!" gasped the pitcher.
"The proctor," added Phil, in a whisper. "He hasn't any right to stop us
now!"
But whether the official had the right or not, he was evidently going to
exercise it, and our heroes thought it better to obey.
"Well, young gentlemen," began the proctor, as he strode up to the trio,
"you are evidently going to the village."
"Yes, sir," answered Tom, meekly.
"There goes the car," remarked Sid in a low voice. "There won't be
another for half an hour, and we'll sure be late for grub. Hang Zane,
anyhow."
"May I ask how long you intend to remain?" went on the obnoxious college
official.
"Not very long," answered Phil. "We are going on an errand. We didn't
know it was against the rules not to leave the college grounds in
daylight, Mr. Zane." It was a sarcastic reference to the many somewhat
childish rules the proc. was in the habit of framing up from time to
time.
"There is no rule prohibiting students from leaving the grounds in
daylight, Mr. Clinton," said the proctor, severely, "but the reason I
stopped you is that I wish to point out that if you go to town now you
will hardly be back in time for supper, and that means that you will
probably get a meal in Haddonfield. Also, there is no set rule against
that, but Dr. Churchill does not like it. Staying to supper in the
village might mean that you would stay later, and I need hardly point
out that there _is_ a rule about being out after hours. That is all,"
and the little proctor walked stiffly away.
"Well, wouldn't that get your goat!" murmured Tom, when the official was
beyond hearing.
"I should say so; and also frizzle your back teeth," added Sid.
"Shall we go?" asked Phil, doubtfully.
"Of course," asserted Tom. "And we'll fool Zane, too. It won't take
us long to have it out with Komsky. Then we can go to one of those
quick-lunch places, have a bite, and get back to college in plenty of
time before locking up. We can arrange to have an expressman bring back
the chair."
"Good!" exclaimed Phil. "I was afraid you'd propose that we lug it back
on the car, and while I'd do a good deal to get it again, I think we'd
look foolish toting it home in our arms."
"Afraid of meeting some girls, I suppose," sneered Tom.
"Say, supposing Komsky hasn't got it," suggested Sid, while Phil
blushed.
"Perish the thought!" cried the pitcher. "We've _got_ to get our chair
back, and if that Shylock hasn't it some of the other second-hand
dealers in town have."
They strolled along, talking of the chair, the chances for a good
football team, and many other college matters until the next car came,
when they hopped aboard, and were soon in Haddonfield.
"Vell, young gentlemans, vot is it? Somedings nice vor de college room,
ain't it? Yes! No? Vell, Isaac Komsky has it vot effer you like, und
cheap! So help me gracious, I lose money on everyt'ing I sell! Now, vot
it is?"
Thus spoke the old second-hand dealer, when our three friends entered.
Eagerly he had come forward, rubbing his hands and wagging his long,
matted beard, while from under bushy eyebrows he peered at them with
eager orbs.
"We're looking for a chair, Komsky," said Tom, brusquely. "A nice, easy,
soft, comfortable chair that we can sit in."
"Oh, so! An easy chair is it? Vell, I haf many, und cheap! It is a shame
about de cheapness. Look, here is one, vot is so--vot you call--easy,
dot it vould make you schleepy efen ven you looket at it, ain't it?"
He thrust forward a most uncomfortable wooden rocker, with gaudy cushions
on the seat and back. The cushions were in Randall colors--yellow and
maroon--and the chair had evidently been sold by some student, either
because he needed the money or because he could afford better furniture.
"No, that's not the kind we want," said Tom, whose eyes were roving
about the cluttered-up shop. He and his chums had decided on the course
of pretending to want to buy a chair, with the idea that if Komsky had
taken theirs, by hook or crook, he would be more apt to show it if he
saw prospective customers, than if he knew they had come demanding their
rights. "We want an easier chair," went on Tom.
"Oh, an easier vun? Den I haf it. See!" and he brought to light a big
Turkish rocker, that was in the last stages of decay.
Meanwhile Sid and Phil had been strolling about, leaving Tom to engage
Komsky in conversation. The two looked in many corners, and peered under
heaps of furniture, but they did not see their chair. Nor, if the dealer
had it, did he show any desire to produce it. Tom looked at rocker after
rocker that was brought out, and at last, convinced that his method was
likely to prove a failure, he boldly stated the case, and demanded to
know, whether by mistake or otherwise, the dealer had taken their old
relic.
The surprise of Mr. Komsky was pitiful to observe. He all but tore out
his beard, and called upon his ancestors as far back as the sixteenth
generation to witness that he had not even seen the chair. He was an
honest man, he was a poor man, he was a man born to poverty and under an
unlucky star, but never, never, _never_! not if you were to give him a
million dollars, would he take a chair from a student's room, without
permission.
"For vy should I, ven I can buys dem efery day?" he demanded, with a
pathetic gesture of his forward-thrust hands.
"Well, I guess it isn't here," spoke Tom, regretfully, when they had
exhausted all the possibilities. "Yet you were at college to-day,
Komsky."
"Vy, sure I vos at der college to-day. Nearly efery veek I am there,
ain't it? Yet I have not your chair."
It was evident that he was telling the truth. He did not have the chair
then, though he might have had it, and have sold it to some other
student, perhaps one from Boxer Hall or Fairview, for those lads also
patronized the second-hand dealers, and Komsky was one of the largest.
"Cæsar's grandmother!" cried Tom, in dismay, as this possibility
suggested itself, "just suppose Langridge or some of those chaps had our
chair! Say, maybe Langridge put up the game!"
"Hardly possible," asserted Phil. "Come on, we'll have a look in some of
the other shops, then we'll get grub and hurry back. I think I saw
drops of blood in Zane's eye."
"He sure _would_ like to get our names down in his little book," said
Sid.
But a round of the other second-hand dealers, where inquiries were made,
developed nothing. There were many easy chairs on sale, but that of our
heroes was not to be seen, and sorrowfully they returned to the college.
It was long past the regular supper time, but they had satisfied their
hunger in Haddonfield. And, in spite of their troubles--their worriment
over the chair, and the mix-up that was sure to result in the football
team--they had managed to eat a good meal.
They saw Proctor Zane, as they strolled up over the campus, and the
official glanced sharply at them.
"He's just wishing we were coming in late," declared Tom.
"I believe you," assented Phil.
They entered their room, stumbling in the darkness over books and
chairs, for they never took the trouble to put their apartment to
rights.
"I say, strike a light, some one!" exclaimed Tom, rubbing his shins
where they had come in contact with a chair.
There was a click as Phil turned the electric switch, and the
incandescent glowed. For a moment the three chums stood in the middle
of the room, gazing at each other.
"Doesn't it seem lonesome without the old chair," spoke Phil at length.
"Sort of makes the room look bigger though," declared Sid, as he threw
himself on the sofa. It was a poor consolation at best.
"I can't imagine what has become of it," said Tom, as he proceeded to
get into some lounging clothes.
"Well, now for some boning, and maybe we'll forget our troubles," went
on Phil, as he scattered a pile of books, looking for his own.
"Are you going to the football meeting to-night?" asked Tom, as he
finished a hurried toilet, for a session of the squad had been called
late that afternoon to consider the loss of Kerr and Molloy.
"I may come over later," spoke Phil. "I think the best thing we can do
is to----"
He paused suddenly, and glanced quickly toward the shelf that served as
a mantle. The gaze of his chums followed. The room seemed suddenly to
become oppressively still. They could almost hear each other breathing.
Then the same thought came to all three.
"The clock!" they exclaimed in a tragic chorus.
"It's gone!" gasped Tom.
"Vanished!" added Phil, staring at the vacant space as though unable or
unwilling to believe the evidence of his eyesight.
"Another mysterious disappearance," exploded Sid, and then Tom remarked
in significant tones:
"I guess we'll have to chain the sofa if we want to keep that!"