Duncan raised the lid of the box a finger's width and Rob peeped in.
"Pretty, aren't they!" observed the grinning Owen. "What are you going to do with them? I thought animals weren't allowed in the dormitories."
"That's just where the chump's meanness comes in!" burst out Donald. "We couldn't throw the things out alive, of course, and we couldn't kill 'em. Lady Jane" (the matron) "came in on us while we had 'em on the table,—caught us with the goods on us, she thought,—and jawed us like a stepmother for defying the school rules. When we said some one put 'em in the desk drawer, she thought we were lying and threatened to have us fired for breaking the rules and not showing her proper respect. I call it a low-down trick!"
"Here's what we found with them," interrupted Duncan. "What does it mean?"
Rob took the slip of paper on which was written in print: "The Second Plague."
"I suppose it means what it says," he remarked.
"And there are more plagues to follow?"
"Yes."
"How many?"