With Mask and Mitt

by Albertus T. Dudley

"They knew when it was done, and how it was done, and who did it," asserted Payner, boldly. "It's my belief they did it themselves. They're just the fellows to do the thing and then look on and laugh while you grind your teeth. Who else could have done it anyway? I wouldn't, and I couldn't either, as I can prove to you. Owen wouldn't and Smith wouldn't and neither would Lindsay nor any of the other fellows round here. There's only the Pecks left. It's dollars to doughnuts they would and did."

"I won't believe it!" cried Reginald, indignantly.

Payner sniffed. "Then don't. I'll bet all the same you can't find out what they were at all the morning."

Clarence explained the case at length, and Reginald protested, but Payner asserted with undiminished confidence, and departed, leaving behind the memory of various pungent sentiments, such as "they're playing you for suckers," "you'll find out sometime," "you're dead easy for those guys," to work in his absence.

All that afternoon the ferment went on in Clarence's mind. He was too indolent to seek facts to inculpate or clear the Pecks, too sensitive to put the experience wholly from his mind as a mishap of the day which he had fortunately survived. Much more distressed by the suspicion that the Pecks were deriding him than by the mere fact of the "rough-housing," he at last decided to lay the matter before an impartial third person.

Late in the evening, when Owen was busy with the last lines of the Virgil for the next morning's eight-o'clock, Clarence offered himself as a caller, bashfully unfolded his tale, and craved an opinion.

The justice heard the case and gave judgment. He liked the Pecks and did not care for Payner. Like Payner, he judged according to previous prejudice. The Pecks were, to his mind, innocent objects of another's malice, and Payner's suspicions wholly groundless. These were not the judge's words, but they represent fairly well his thought. What he said was that Payner was crazy, which in a general way may or may not have been true.

Clarence departed with pride soothed and composure restored. Rob, in the firmness of his conviction, hurried over to the Pecks to share with them his laugh over Payner's ridiculous charge. He had hardly broached the subject when he began to question the correctness of his recently delivered opinion. The Pecks looked very indignant and protested very loudly, but the manner of their indignation was so clearly forced and their underlying glee so obvious, that the unguarded wink which Donald threw at his brother and which Rob surprised was hardly necessary to confirm the visitor's growing belief that Payner had been right after all. And how the gentle-mannered twins did malign the insolent Payner for his interference! It was none of his business; he was butting in where he didn't belong; he was a fresh gazabo, an uncivilized cub, an outlaw in disguise, who would wreck a train for a pipe of tobacco or shoot a benefactor from behind a fence; he had probably saved himself from being hanged for horse-stealing by taking refuge in Seaton; he certainly belonged behind the bars.