After thanking the janitor's wife for her information, the boys left the
house.
"Funny Tony should be going to stay away a couple of days," remarked
Paul, as he walked along.
Both his companions agreed with him, but as Harry had lived in Rivertown
so short a time, he was little acquainted with the habits of Farelli,
and so he could offer no intelligent comment.
"It seems to me we ought to get over to Lumberport as quickly as we
can," announced Jerry. "If we can locate Tony and pull the story out of
him before anyone else gets to him, it will be some feather in our
caps."
"It seems to me we ought to tell Dawson, and some of the other boys,"
declared Harry. "If there really is any crooked work they will be more
likely to make the janitor tell about it than we would, I should think,
considering the fact that they have been at the school four years."
To this suggestion, our hero's chums agreed, and quickly they betook
themselves to the hall in which the room of the Psi Mus was located.
"You've got a nerve to rap at our door. Didn't we tell you to wait and
meet us in the hall?" demanded the boy who answered the summons.
"That's all right. We've found out something you people ought to know,
so you needn't close the door in our faces," retorted Jerry.
The statement that they had important information to impart had been
heard by the leaders of the two societies who were holding the
consultation, and quickly they called to them to enter.
"Well, what is it that's so important?" demanded Dawson.
"We went down to see if Tony was at home," began Paul, when he was
interrupted by one of the others exclaiming:
"Of course he wasn't. This is his day to go to Lumberport on school
business for Princy."
"I know that," retorted Paul, "but we thought perhaps he might not have
started yet. When we got there, Mrs. Farelli asked us if we'd come to
pay Tony some money, for if we had, he wanted us to leave it at
Rector's, in Lumberport, because Tony won't be home for a couple of
days."
"That's just Tony's way of trying to collect his debts quickly,"
commented one of the boys.
"Then why shouldn't he have told his wife to take it," asked Harry.
"And that's what he would do," interposed Dawson. "I say it won't do any
harm for some of us to go over to Rector's and see what's up. In the
meantime, you three boys keep your mouths closed about what Mrs. Farelli
told you."
To their disappointment, none of the freshmen were invited to become
members of the party that went to Lumberport, but they trailed along,
nevertheless; and when they trooped into the tobacco store which the
janitor had appointed as a rendezvous, they were surprised to see Elmer
Craven and Pud Snooks talking with Tony.
Their amazement, however, was nothing compared to that of the two
students of Rivertown High when they discovered the presence of their
schoolmates.
"Didn't know you boys would dare come into a cigar store," growled
Elmer, scowling.
"So that's why you selected it for your meeting place with Tony?"
retorted Dawson, and then, ignoring the presence of the rich boy, the
leader of the Kappa Phis turned to the janitor.
"Tony, I want you tell me which of the Pi Etas it was who broke the
stuff last night?"
"It was this young man, here," returned the Italian, nodding toward
Harry.
"What do you mean?" demanded the accused boy, his face blanching. "I
wasn't anywhere near the schoolhouse last night. Just as soon as the fun
was over at the chapter room, I went home--and to bed."
"I can vouch for the going home part of it," declared Jerry.
"And so can I," added Paul.
"And my aunt can vouch for my being in the house," continued Harry.
"You see, Tony, you must have made a mistake, don't you?" pursued
Dawson.
The charge that he had been wrong in the identification of the marauder
angered the Italian and he did not hesitate to let the fact be known.
Dawson and Harry's chums, however, refused to accept the janitor's
statement, and began to ply him with a series of cross questions which
finally extracted the statement from him that there really was a
possibility he had made an error because he was fully thirty feet away
from the person he had seen in the building, and the only light he had
was a lantern.
As these facts were brought out, the boys who formed the investigating
committee exchanged significant glances.
But their surprise was to be still further increased.
With an unexpectedness that made them gasp, Dawson exclaimed:
"I want you to tell me, Tony, if it isn't in connection with this
identification business that Pud and Elmer came over here to pay you
some money?"
Too amazed to speak, the janitor and the boys with whom he had been
talking when the others entered the tobacco shop, glanced at one
another.
And their action was accepted by the other boys as a tacit admission
that the amazing charge made by Dawson was true.
"Well, why don't you tell me?" repeated the leader of the Kappa Phis who
had been acting as spokesman.
"Because it is a matter that does not concern you," retorted the
janitor.
"But you can't deny it was about this laboratory business, now, Tony,
can you?" pursued his interrogator.
"I haven't been given any money by those boys," protested the janitor.
"But your wife said you were expecting some from them," declared Dawson,
stretching the truth, that he might make his point more effective.
"They haven't given me a cent," whined the Italian. "They backed out!"