STANDART GETS ADVICE
Monty encountered Jimmy the next morning in front of School Hall. Jimmy
was one of a dozen youths awaiting the nine o’clock bell on the steps.
It was a brisk morning in the last week of October, but here in the
sunlight it was comfortably warm. Jimmy disengaged himself from Ned
Musgrave and Nick Blake, with whom he had been talking, and sauntered
out to intercept Monty. He had a quizzical smile on his face as he
thrust a hand under Monty’s arm, and turned him along the brick wall.
“Fine morning, Monty,” he observed blandly.
“Why not?”
“No reason at all, no reason at all. I’m glad it is. I’m glad for your
sake.”
Monty gazed around over the turf. “I didn’t know loco weed grew in
these parts,” he murmured.
“Because,” proceeded Jimmy, “it’s nice to have pleasant recollections
of a place. You’ll remember Grafton as you see it today, Monty, with
the sunlight gilding the façades of our noble buildings, and the
autumn sky blue overhead――――”
“I like it rhymed better. There’s more swing to it. This ‘free verse’
stuff――――”
“Yes, you’ll look back on this fair morning, and say, ‘Ah, them was the
“halcyon” days!’ You’ll remember the school at its best, Monty.”
“I’ll try to. I’m in no hurry, but it’s about two minutes to nine, and
maybe you’d better get down to cases, partner.”
“What train have you decided on?” asked Jimmy solicitously.
“Oh, I’m going away, am I? That’s the idea. Well, shoot, Jimmy!”
“Don’t pretend innocence, Monty. In the words of our best playwrights,
‘All is discovered!’”
“Who’s Hall?” inquired the other interestedly.
“He’s the _key_ to the situation,” chuckled Jimmy. “Say, it was all
right, Monty. I give you that. It was some circus while it lasted.
Where you made one mistake was not to stick around and watch the fun.
You ought to have heard the howls!” Jimmy laughed gleefully. “We spent
about half an hour trying to fit keys from the upper corridor rooms
before someone got sore and hiked down to ‘Jimmy’ Rumford, and told his
troubles. Then ‘Jimmy’ sent for Mr. Craig, and Craig had gone to bed,
and after he came he couldn’t find which was the right passkey, and
there was the dickens generally.”
“Of course,” drawled Monty, “I’m supposed to know what you’re talking
about?”
Jimmy winked slowly. “You are. Bixby recognized you.”
“I don’t know him personally, but I’ve used his blacking.”
“You put your head in his room and asked for me, you idiot. That was a
crazy thing to do. But they say criminals always fall down somewhere on
the job.”
“Oh, that was Bixby, was it? And he up and spoke a piece?”
“Not Bix! Bix is all right. He told me in confidence, and you can
depend on his keeping mum.”
“I always liked his blacking,” said Monty gratefully. “Well, then, why
the stampede? Why look up trains, Jimmy?”
“Because Rumford’s hopping, tearing mad, darling. Says you――meaning
whoever did it――tried to fasten the crime on him. He’s gone and told
Charley. Says he will find the culprit if he has to question every
fellow in school. He will, too. He’s like that. All the――er――tenacity
of a bulldog; without his forgiving disposition. That was mistake
number two, old dear. ‘Anyone but Jimmy’ should have been your motto.”
The nine o’clock bell rang, and Jimmy turned back along the path. But
Monty grabbed him. “I guess I’m sort of boneheaded, Jimmy,” he said,
“but kindly tell me where Rumford comes in on it. What did I do to him,
Jimmy?”
“What did you do to him?” demanded the other incredulously as he led
the pace back to School Hall. “Why, you triple-ply, self-starting
idiot, you dumped the keys on his table!”
“_What!_”
“Sure! Didn’t you know it? Didn’t you mean to?”
Monty shook his head weakly as they stumbled up the steps, and Jimmy
gave way to a gale of laughter.
“Oh, that’s great!” he gurgled. “Monty, you’re a wonder! You――you――――”
“Shut up!” whispered the other. “Don’t sing about it! How much does Old
Whiskers know?”
“Nothing――yet. But watch out for trouble, dearie. And, say, if you
still have the key to Number 8 go and drop it in the river. It’s the
only one that wasn’t found, and having it on you will be just about as
safe as carrying a stick of dynamite. See you at eleven, Monty. Come up
to the room.”
Jimmy darted off down the corridor, leaving Monty to climb the stairs
to a Latin recitation. As he went his right hand clutched tightly a
brass key and tag at the bottom of a pocket. He feared it might jingle!
“What gets me,” said Jimmy later, as they sat in Number 14, “is why
Charley didn’t spring something about it in chapel this morning. He
must have known by then, because he and ‘Jimmy’ were talking together
when Dud and I went in. Maybe he’s going to do some detective work, and
find that Number 8 key. I say, you don’t know where it got to, eh?”
Monty hesitated. Then he nodded.
“You do? Where is it? You haven’t got it still, I hope!”
“It’s best for you not to know, Jimmy,” replied Monty gravely. “What
you don’t know won’t hurt you.”
“Well, all right, but, for the love of lemons, Monty, get rid of it if
you have it! If it got found on you――or in your room――or anywhere――”
Jimmy was quite breathless.
“I’d have to look up another school, eh? Why is it, Jimmy, that Fate
knocks me around the way it does? I want to lead a quiet and peaceful
life, but I’m not let. I’m a regular tumble-weed. Look at the way
things happened at Dunning.”
“But you told us you deliberately fired yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but why? I was bored, just as I was last night. I needed
excitement, and there wasn’t any, and so, of course, I had to find it.
But it isn’t my fault, is it? I guess it’s my evil genius,” said Monty
sadly. “The real A Monty Crail is a quiet, peace-loving _hombre_,
but――――”
Jimmy laughed. “The trouble with you, old scout, is that you need more
room than you get at prep school. You’re a child of the boundless west,
eh, what?”
“Maybe. Anyhow, I’ve had a good time so far. I’d be sorry to lose
football, though. Look here, how’s Old Whiskers going to fasten the
childish prank on me as long as you and Bixby keep your ears down?”
“I’m hoping he won’t,” said Jimmy. “But he’s a determined old codger,
and if there’s any sort of a clue he will find it as sure as shooting.
At that, though, you might not get anything more than probation.”
“What’s that do to you?” asked Monty anxiously.
“Well, it keeps you out of athletics, for one thing. And you have
to stick around the school, and can’t go off, and you stay in your
dormitory every evening after six o’clock, and you have to get up and
stay up in all your studies. And if you make one false move faculty is
on you like a ton of bricks.”
“Is that all?” asked the other sarcastically. “They don’t draw and
quarter you, then?”
“It’s better than being dropped, though,” responded Jimmy
philosophically. “If you’re on pro you can get reinstated again, but if
you’re expelled――good night!”
“I would just as soon get fired as go on probation,” said Monty.
“Anyway, what’s the good of worrying about it? If Old Whiskers gets
me, why, he gets me, and that’s all there is to it. Maybe, after all,
I wasn’t intended to mingle with you high-brows. Maybe one of those
catch-as-catch-can schools out our way would be more my style. Might as
well be cheerful, eh?”
“Sure! ‘Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet,’ as the poet so
beautifully hath it.”
“Did the fellows notice the fact that I left before the party was
over?” asked Monty.
“No, I don’t think so. I didn’t know you had gone until we stopped
yelping. Leon was looking for you, too. If Bixby doesn’t talk, and he
promised he wouldn’t, I don’t see that ‘Jimmy’ has much of a show.
Of course, if he gets to asking all the fellows he might stumble on
something to put him wise.”
“He wouldn’t be likely to ask any fellows outside Lothrop, would he?”
“I suppose not. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Come across. What are you wondering about? Did someone see you up
here?”
“Only Bixby. But――well, the silly part of it’s this. I didn’t know
I’d missed one of those keys when I dumped them through that window.
I suppose I dropped it in another pocket. Anyway, when I got back to
Morris, that Indian, Standart, had a nose-bleed――――”
“Who handed it to him?” asked Jimmy, eagerly.
Monty shook his head. “That’s what I hoped, but it wasn’t so. He just
has ’em for fun. Well, I remembered that if you put something cold
against the back of your neck you generally stopped it. I mean the
nose-bleed. So I did the Good Samaritan act and fished out a key――――”
“You howling idiot!”
“Take the money, Jimmy. I didn’t think anything about it being one of
those keys; didn’t stop to think that it _was_ a key, I guess; and
Standart got hold of it, and wanted to know how I came by it.”
“Did you tell him you found it?”
“Something of the sort. I tried to be careless about it, but――――”
“It’s all up, dearie! Still, maybe Standart won’t peep, eh?”
“Won’t he?” said Monty grimly. “He hates me like he hates soap and
water, and that’s some hate! I didn’t know last night that I’d gone and
put the keys in Rumford’s room or that there’d be all this fuss about
it. If I had I’d have made Standart promise not to squeal. Now, I guess
it’s too late. He’s probably talked it all over the school.”
“I’m afraid so,” groaned Jimmy. “Say, you are one fine little criminal,
aren’t you? Look here, though, Monty, why don’t you go and find
Standart and see if he’s blabbed? There’s always the chance that he
hasn’t. And _if_ he hasn’t――” Jimmy paused eloquently. “You might be
able to convince him that it would be a lot more healthy to forget it!”
“I guess I’d better,” agreed Monty, reaching for his hat. “It may just
be that he hasn’t connected that key with the little affair yet.”
“Don’t bank on that, old dear. Standart’s no fool, if he is an ass. He
knows, all right, all right, but he may be chewing it over and thinking
out the best way to spring his little piece. Get after him and buy him
off or scare him to death.”
“Buy him off!” said Monty scornfully. “I wouldn’t bargain with the
beast. But I might show him two mighty good reasons for keeping quiet!”
Monty didn’t overtake Alvin until dinner-time. Then he encountered him
on his way downstairs to the table. During the meal, during which the
practical joke played on the second floor residents of Lothrop was
the main subject of conversation, Monty cast many appraising glances
across the board at his roommate without, however, being able to decide
how much Alvin knew or guessed. At least, he offered no light on the
problem that interested the gathering, which was who had had the
beautiful effrontery to put those keys on Mr. Rumford’s cabinet. Monty
gathered that it would have been far less rash to have rung Doctor
Duncan’s doorbell and handed the keys to a maid with his compliments!
When dinner was over Monty trailed Alvin to the front steps. It almost
seemed that the latter was aware of Monty’s espionage, for he appeared
to take especial pains to avoid him. He sat down, and entered the
conversation that was going on, while Monty grimly stood watch in
the doorway. One by one, however, the other fellows got up and went
indoors or wandered away toward the campus, and Alvin, finding himself
threatened with being left alone with Monty, arose, too, and started
upstairs. Monty followed him leisurely, and reached the next floor only
in time to prevent Alvin from dodging into Number G.
“I want to see you a minute,” he said, laying a persuasive hand on
Alvin’s shoulder. “Just a minute, _hombre_. Come on in here.”
Alvin expostulated haughtily, but evidently didn’t care to make a
physical issue of it, and followed the other into F. Monty closed the
door. Then he thrust his hands into his pockets――the right coming into
startling contact with that horrible key――and faced his roommate. Alvin
was eyeing him at once slyly and defiantly.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want to give you some advice, partner,” replied Monty gravely. “If
you know something you think faculty would like to hear it’ll pay you
best to forget all about it.”
“I don’t know what you mean!”
“I think you do, son. And my advice to you is: Don’t do it! Because
if I found that faculty had learned something unpleasant about me I’d
hitch it right up to you, and then, if it was the last act of my young
and blameless career, I’d everlastingly wallop you, _hombre_. Sprinkle
that on your oats and chew it!”
“If I did know anything,” blustered Alvin, “your threats wouldn’t keep
me quiet. Not if I wanted to tell. I’m not saying, though, whether I
know anything or not.” He smirked. “Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.
That’s for you to find out.”
“Whether you do or don’t isn’t worrying me, Standart. I’m only giving
you fair warning that if you talk you’ll wish you hadn’t. Savvy?”
“I’m not afraid of you, you blow-hard! I’ll do just as I please. Maybe
if I wanted to I could tell Mr. Rumford something that would interest
him, though.”
“So you do know, eh?” asked Monty grimly. He began to get out of his
coat. “Then I guess you’ve already squealed, and I’d better――――”
[Illustration: “Then I guess you’ve already squealed, and I’d
better――――”]
“I haven’t!” protested Alvin, moving hurriedly around the table. “Give
you my word I haven’t, Crail!”
“Sure?” Alvin nodded vehemently. “Well, are you going to? Because, if
you are, you might as well have it right now while I’m feeling in the
right mood. Are you?”
“I haven’t said I knew anything,” hedged the other. “And you can’t lick
me for something I haven’t done. And――and I’d like to know what I’d be
doing all the time! I’m not afraid of you, you big bully!”
“I’m no bigger than you are, and I’m nearly a year younger,” replied
Monty, “but I sure can lick you, and I mean to do it the very first
time you make a yip. I mean that, Standart. Remember this, _hombre_; if
you tell anything you know or think you know it will be good-by for me,
and when it is good-by I shan’t care a hang what I do, because I’ll be
pulling my freight anyway. Now, you think that over, and if you think
hard you’ll decide to keep your ears flat down to your head, son.”
Monty pulled his coat back into place, and Alvin, seeing that instant
punishment was not his doom, recovered his sang-froid. He smiled
contemptuously, and snapped his long fingers.
“I’ve got you guessing, haven’t I, Mr. Smart Alick?” he asked. “And
I’ll keep you guessing, too,” he chuckled. “When things are going along
their nicest, Crail, you just remember that I’m still around with a
tongue in my head. I make no promises, understand. I’ve got you where
I want you, and I’ll keep you there as long as it pleases me to! Now
_you_ do some thinking!”
“That’s all right, _hombre_,” replied Monty. “Just remember what I’ve
said. There’s no time-limit set.”
After that, Monty sauntered across to School Hall, and, being quite
alone in the corridor, hung the key of Number 8 Lothrop to a tack on
the notice board.