With Mask and Mitt

by Albertus T. Dudley

Payner hesitated as if not entirely satisfied with Eddy's answer; then turned to the door.

"Just let down the catch, see?" he called once more, pausing with his hand on the fastening.

"Yes, yes, I'll do it," returned Eddy, with a little petulance. It seemed hardly necessary that the injunction should be so often repeated. Payner went out, shutting the door behind him.

Duncan Peck stood in the entry hallooing to some one below. He waited until the steps of the collector of coleoptera died away at the entrance of the building, then crept softly up to the door just closed, and gently tried it as he had done many times before. To his surprise it yielded to the pressure of his hand. Made cautious by a former experience, Duncan pushed the door very slowly until, through the widening crack, he perceived Eddy, standing before the table intent on the specimens. At this sight the evil-doer closed the door as softly as he had opened it, slipped back to his room, found his brother, and sent him over to the lecture to make sure of Payner's presence there. With great foresight, the Pecks had invented a device suited to just such an emergency as the present. They had prepared a little wooden plug which would almost fill the socket into which the door-latch springs, leaving but a thin edge to catch the latch. This slight hold of the latch would be sufficient to keep the door shut, but quite incapable of resisting pressure. As the locks of all the rooms were uniform, the plug which had been made to fit the Pecks' door could be counted on to produce the same effect on any door in the dormitory. Armed with this burglar's contrivance, Duncan crept back across the hall, pushed Payner's door ajar once more, and inserted his plug; then closed the door again and sneaked back to safety. In a few minutes the twins, secretly watching from their room, saw Eddy come out, slam the door, and go whistling downstairs. His whistle was still audible in the distance when Duncan stole down the entry and gave a hard push at Payner's knob. The door swung on its hinges. The long-desired opportunity had come at last!

The ripping up of Payner's room was not as thorough a job as that by which the unhappy Moons had suffered. The twins were too much excited, and their eagerness to finish was too great to permit much elaboration. They dragged the chief articles of furniture around the desk; piled the bedding on the heap, and wet it down with a dash of water; smashed the lamp-shade in trying to make it sit securely on top, and filled the fireplace with pictures from the wall. To give distinction to the effect, the precious beetles were taken from their case, and pinned up over the fireplace in a hasty attempt to form the letters of the Latin Salve.

When Payner returned from the lecture, half an hour later, he ran into the outworks of the heap, and sent the ruins of his shade crashing to the floor. The twins listened through the crack of their door, and trembled with excitement and eagerness, lashed by guilty consciences and yet defiant. But this one crash was all they heard. The door did not reopen, and no other sound came from within to indicate the feelings of their victim.

Next morning when they went out to breakfast, they noticed that the card in the indicator at the entrance to the dormitory on which had been written opposite No. 7, D. and D. Peck, now bore the legend The D—D Pecks. It was Payner's defiance, his challenging gauntlet! But the Pecks, in their vainglory, laughed loudly and feared nothing.

Two nights later when Donald, who was the first undressed, jumped into bed and thrust his feet down into the depths, he uttered a shriek and sprang headlong out.

"What is it?" cried Duncan, turning around in amazement.

"Some awful, clammy thing in the bed!" gasped Donald, shivering convulsively.