And for the next few days Wolcott had kept tabs, as well as was possible for a fellow who was still groping bewildered in the maze of new experiences. One evening he dropped into the Pecks’ room to ask about a lesson. The boys were laboring at their desks with a great air of diligence. They looked up eagerly as he opened the door, and then glanced at each other and laughed.
Wolcott, with the self-consciousness of a new boy, and with the recollection of his increased contribution still fresh, turned violently red. “What are you laughing at?” he demanded, determined that at any rate these two youngsters should not flout him.
“Oh, nothing,” returned Peck Number One, whom Wolcott assumed to be Duncan. “We thought it was some one else.” Then the pair laughed together, and Wolcott knew that his fears were groundless.
“Just stay here awhile and you’ll see some fun,” said Number Two. “There, they’re coming out now!”
A door opened farther up the hall, there was the sound of voices, then of stamping and loud words.
“They’re trying to get ’em up!” said Number One, giggling excitedly.
Number Two tiptoed to the door and opening it slightly let in the sound of scraping and maledictions. “For editors of the Lit, they use pretty poor language,” he said.
Wolcott could repress his curiosity no longer.
“I think I’ll go out and see what’s up,” he said. “If there’s anything doing, I should like a sight of it.”
In front of Tompkins’s door was a group of four, bending over several pairs of rubbers. Tompkins on his knees was laboring with a screw-driver to loosen one from the floor.